Ubuntu's User-Space Ported To Run On Windows 10 By Canonical/Microsoft

[Geopirate]

The real April fool's joke is all the people on here in tinfoil hats. Steve Ballmer has been gone more than 2 years and Microsoft is a completely different beast now. They are going to continue to integrate themselves into the community so you can continue with this Luddite thing or actually deal with it head on. They are going to integrate the kernel and/or the userspace so they can snuff out the small traction we have gained in the desktop space and muscle into the server space more aggressively. You think it's a coincidence that this coincides with the consolidation Wayland will provide in the next couple years? Think about how much easier that will make it for this to blow past Wine in a year or two? Is this the real reason they made Mir? I'm not sure what to really think, but I know the dismissive tone on here is the wrong answer.

[duby229]

I know people on here REALLY love to hate Microsoft in general and they have a terrible history of toxic behavior. The problem is much of that history was under the leadership of Steve Ballmer who was truly the James Bond villain you envision in your head when you think about the CEO of Microsoft the most hated company in tech. He was replaced now a little over 2 years ago by an Indian engineer who wants to try and mend fences and become part of the community. At some point people are going to stop treating every time they reach out as some sort of trojan horse. As others in the thread have said, it's time to take off your tinfoil hat and start looking at this as a serious change in how they do business. I'm not saying they are completely benevolent but they have already transitioned Office to a subscribtion model and all signs indicate they will move in the same direction with Windows (hence the push to 10) and their other products. People also say that Microsoft will never release a Linux distro but again this is yet another sign that it will happen sooner rather than later, I would wager it won't be long after most things are switched over to Wayland. They have already lifted so much from open source, this is probably the first step to running Linux user space on top of the Windows kernel and vice versa so they can muscle further into the server world.

http://asimpleexplanation.blogspot.com/2011/12/all-about-simple-conscious-universe.html

Behavior can be defined mathematically, if you consider it to be a geometric shape. All behavior. It's simply the facts of the universe. At this point MS has a 100% success rate at repeating their behavioral patterns. They represent a perfect fractal.

[SaucyJack]

"Steve Ballmer has been gone more than 2 years and Microsoft is a completely different beast now."

Considering microsoft monitors it's communication software for the government (Xbox live chat and skype that I know of) and has a backdoor in W10 how is marrying anything microsoft to anything linux a good idea? They also still actively attack open source based on their 'patents'.

[torsionbar28]

I know people on here REALLY love to hate Microsoft in general and they have a terrible history of toxic behavior. The problem is much of that history was under the leadership of Steve Ballmer who was truly the James Bond villain you envision in your head when you think about the CEO of Microsoft the most hated company in tech. He was replaced now a little over 2 years ago by an Indian engineer who wants to try and mend fences and become part of the community. At some point people are going to stop treating every time they reach out as some sort of trojan horse. As others in the thread have said, it's time to take off your tinfoil hat and start looking at this as a serious change in how they do business. I'm not saying they are completely benevolent but they have already transitioned Office to a subscribtion model and all signs indicate they will move in the same direction with Windows (hence the push to 10) and their other products.

What does the payment model have to do with anything? Microsoft just wants your $$$ however they can get it. An annual subscription is a lot less expensive than an outright purchase, so those who would avoid Office due to the cost (students, for example) might be more inclined to give Microsoft their $$$ in a subscription model. It's also a way to bilk a few more $$$ out of customers who don't really see any value in the newer Office versions. For many businesses, especially small businesses, Office 2007 is more than enough, why bother paying for a newer version? Subscription forces the issue.

People also say that Microsoft will never release a Linux distro but again this is yet another sign that it will happen sooner rather than later, I would wager it won't be long after most things are switched over to Wayland. They have already lifted so much from open source, this is probably the first step to running Linux user space on top of the Windows kernel and vice versa so they can muscle further into the server world.

Of course Microsoft will release their own Linux distro. That's in-line with their embrace and extinguish mantra. Make no mistake, no matter who is at the helm, Microsoft's #1 priority is making money. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's the reason any business exists. But you have to keep that in mind any time you begin thinking that Microsoft acts out of altruism or sense of community - they don't.

[torsionbar28]

"Steve Ballmer has been gone more than 2 years and Microsoft is a completely different beast now."

Considering microsoft monitors it's communication software for the government (Xbox live chat and skype that I know of) and has a backdoor in W10 how is marrying anything microsoft to anything linux a good idea? They also still actively attack open source based on their 'patents'.

Edzachary. Only a fool would hitch their wagon to Redmond.

[Snaipersky]

.. source?

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/30/ubuntu-on-windows-the-ubuntu-userspace-for-windows-developers/

ELF binaries.

[dragorth]

.. source?

In one of the in between interviews on Channel 9, it was mentioned that this is from the same subsystem. At the time I wrote that, this hadn't been said, but was a well educated guess.

If you are talking about the kernel infrastructure, it was confirmed in that same interview, but was mentioned in the blog post of this story as well. There is also a video on channel 9 that shows it working, and they make it very clear that this is running on the Windows kernel, using what they are calling the Linux Subsystem for Windows.

[Xaero_Vincent]

The real April fool's joke is all the people on here in tinfoil hats. Steve Ballmer has been gone more than 2 years and Microsoft is a completely different beast now. They are going to continue to integrate themselves into the community so you can continue with this Luddite thing or actually deal with it head on. They are going to integrate the kernel and/or the userspace so they can snuff out the small traction we have gained in the desktop space and muscle into the server space more aggressively. You think it's a coincidence that this coincides with the consolidation Wayland will provide in the next couple years? Think about how much easier that will make it for this to blow past Wine in a year or two? Is this the real reason they made Mir? I'm not sure what to really think, but I know the dismissive tone on here is the wrong answer.

Well I don't think app support will make much of a difference here. Bash and pretty much all Linux utilities have been available on Windows for many years via Cygwin + Xming. Furthermore, pretty much any major FOSS app has a Windows port. People never had to use Linux if all they wanted is tools like Bash or Linux-centric apps in general. So I'm not so sure this will make much of an impact as far as installed base goes as there are other reasons why some people choose to use Linux. That said, this does make things easier for developers who prefer Windows to target Linux for application porting.

It's somewhat upsetting that Canonical sold out to Microsoft without at least requesting some Windows technologies to make it into Ubuntu to help enrich it's own feature set. I mean, how about having Microsoft port PowerShell, the UWP WinRT framework, and a fixed Skype Linux app in exchange for assisting with Linux subsystem layer for Windows? The benefits seem far too one-way in Microsoft's favor, IMO.

That said, at least it's possible for bare-metal Linux users to realize a similar level of Windows / Linux app integration:

http://s22.postimg.org/ixj8ozhzl/LPowershell.png

http://s23.postimg.org/iydf3dtm3/Lwinstore.png

[liam]

So, Microsoft made PowerShell which was supposed to win over Bash users and be even better... except it really wasn't. There are some die hard Microsoft types that swear by PowerShell but it seriously didn't catch on in a bigger way.

Microsoft is basically abandoning it's old completely walled garden strategy where absolutely everything developers use should be Microsoft.

This actually makes Windows much more attractive to many developers including me, but it's also making it less distinct. What's the point of Windows if it's just another Mac or Linux?

The two major things Windows has that's exclusive to the Windows OS is:
- Full Office: there are ports to web, Mac, Android, etc, but the real Office is non-mobile Windows, and there is a large crowd of business users that don't want anything else and are eager to pay for it.
- High end Gaming. High end PC gaming is kind of merging with console gaming. Low to mid end PC gaming is just moving to iOS/Android.

They've been attempts to make a PS for Linux but it's really difficult.
A large part of the problem, aiui, is that Windows provides a robust object oriented (it's based and built upon .NET) and traditional nix shells deal with raw byts streams. This makes all user facing aspects of guis accessible to Power Shell. We could get some of that functionality by deeply integrating dbus (or something similar) into the shell.
Power Shell really is a next gen shell.

[david_lynch]

Imagine this situation:

...where you are on Ubuntu and need to either run a Windows VM, translate-on-the-fly via Wine or surreptitiously run a second box using Synergy to share keyboard and mouse input is much less appealing compared to the above, wouldn't you think?

Um, Nope. I don't see any appeal in working in a captive, watered down "linux" environment inside of windows. Just eliminate windows and you'll have the whole enchilada!