Microsoft Posts WSLg Preview - GUI App Support With Windows Subsystem For Linux

[akpho]

Year of the Linux Desktop

[kpedersen]

Fortunately many people aren't shills nor naive, what are you?

I am just someone who happens to be old enough to remember Microsoft at their EEE finest.

Those saying Microsoft has changed and jumping immediately onto things like WSL and VSCode are damaging the industry. It is embarrassing that so many developers don't learn.

[Nocifer]

It's pretty obvious that Microsoft, having lost the fight for the server backend to Linux, is now instead spending bucketloads of money in an attempt to make Windows into a great environment for developing for Linux, thus tricking people (who kid themselves that they are developers) into thinking Linux is only a niche software platform that only needs to be deployed on the backend once and then never touched again. Kind of like an embedded platform.

P.S. - To the people slandering socialism and communism as an evil that threatens the Linux ecosystem and needs to be purged: could you please realize that the Open Source model is essentially communism in a nutshell and stop spewing your nonsense? Kthxbye.

P.S.2 - Gotta love the MS shills who try to praise the WSL as a Good Thing™ for Linux (and when I say "shills" I really just mean "idiots").

[Echo 8]

this is solely about getting people off linux and onto windows for development. like i commented earlier, if microsoft truly loved linux like they claim, they would be contributing to wine and opening up direct x instead of doing this nonsense where they get linux gui programs running on windows via direct x without even opening up their api or even adopting an open api like opengl / vulkan to do so that is already cross platform. make windows and linux software easily cross platform with one another. rather than just solely focusing on getting linux software running on windows while neglecting the other side of the road.

its a two way street and what microsoft has been doing is focusing only on the one side that leads to them. they're not treating linux as an equal. microsoft wants linux development on windows. microsoft wants everyone on windows for their platform of choice. i learned this first hand over on level1techs forums where they have been highlighting how windows is far better to develop for linux than linux now thanks to wsl. there's no point on using linux as a development platform as you get the massive windows eco system of native software plus you can now use your linux apps on windows.

I honestly can't understand this position. Contributing to wine means hurting Windows' relevancy and using OpenGL/Vulkan over DirectX means ceding control to a third party, both of which is clearly against Microsoft's interests.

Unless there's a customer (which theoretically might be MS itself should they ever decide to drop the NT kernel) willing to fund such work, it doesn't make sense for MS to do it.

[Min1123]

I rushed to try WSLg (via the required insider preview) on my Lenovo Yoga C630 (AARCH64, and VERY broken for Linux support, despite having a dedicated DTB from the kernel since forever ago).
It cannot be tried. WSLg requires WSL2 and will not operate with WSL1. Because Lenovo crippled this Yoga laptop by never releasing a firmware upgrade that allows enabling HW Virtualization (other companies making SDM850-based laptops did release updates, the chip is capable), Hyper-V and thus WSL2 are impossible on it, so WSLg is as well.

[Alexmitter]

Direct X doesn't run on a vacuum in Windows doesn't it?

It runs on Graphic Drivers and is implemented by such.

No one stops anyone from implementing the DirectX specification in Gallium3D or as a DirectX to OpenGL wrapper like Wine's own or in a DirectX to Vulkan wrapper like DXVK. Should Microsoft implement such? Is that what you are saying?

[blacknova]

Do you want to know why I know this WSL thing is another Microsoft tactic to cause harm?

Because there wasn't and there isn't any market demand for it.

It is not a product that anybody wanted.

You should add "IMHO" for this kind of declaration. And OSS community is perfectly capable of harming itself without MS.

[cynic]

Unlike us, Microsoft can learn it seems

yes.
As much as I hate them, their products and their politics, I have to admit that they're doing pretty well fighting against Linux.

[JPFSanders]

You may have noticed that the Direct X API is documented and that we have multiple implementations of its various versions now. It is not software, it is a specification that on Windows has to be implemented by the various GPU drivers available.

What should Microsoft contribute to Wine? Wine is not a Driver. They could write a Gallium3D driver frontend for it, but no one would care much.

Direct X doesn't run on a vacuum in Windows doesn't it?

[blacknova]

I would rather have Microsoft implement WSL2 access to network when using VPN.
I can already workaround lack of WSLg myself by running X server on Windows.
For this reason at work I need to use WSL1 to develop software deployed exclusively on Linux.
I would prefer to use WSL2 for that.

Strange it work for me, WSL2 distro can connect to resources over VPN which was established from the host.