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I used WSL extensively at a couple of previous jobs. Sometimes IT only gives you the choice of Windows or Mac. I'm quite happy to have a Linux machine at my current job, but WSL has gotten the job done for me when I lacked that option.
My company mandates Windows laptops but I mostly work with Linux VMs hosted on our servers. WSL2 and Visual Studio Code (with Remote SSH and WSL2 plug-ins) are the best things that happened to Windows in years. Without these tools I would simply be unable to work.
I don't understand the pointless hate over wsl. Sure, it doesn't replace Linux. It also doesn't have to... Just having access to basic nix functionality from a windows desktop is still a useful feature. It makes stuff like putty mostly obsolete. It let's windows users unpack tarballs without 7zip. It let's developers play video games while "compiling". It's just an all-around convenient tool to have.
Maybe Microsoft wanted it to replace the Linux desktop, but since when has anyone really cared about what Microsoft wanted :P
Yeah, I don't see what the big deal is. I won't be switching from Windows anytime soon, for various reasons, but I very much appreciate being able to have access to a local linux environment without having to dual boot.
WSL + Docker is all I need :-)
Seriously, with the VSCode integration to control everything from your IDE.
Yeah, I can't emphasize enough how it can't replace Linux. And it doesn't even always work that well for stuff that you'd expect to be able to work there.
I use Windows for my mostly-for-gaming desktop and because I'm very lazy with dual booting, I usually just use WSL if I wanna do some small thing. Or even some not so small thing. I tried to get stable diffusion working using it. I strongly dislike using the windows command line (I do all my professional dev on Linux and it's what I'm most comfortable with), so I tried to use the Linux instructions with WSL. Did not go well. Wasted more time than I should have trying to make it work before I just gave up on that idea.
Not the first time I hit some weird WSL incompatibility either. I really should know better.
I spend like 80% of my work day in WSL. Using a Linux image that 100% matches the production environment, docker and k8s integration, and using VScode easily with WSL.
The big thing that makes is work is all I need is a command line.
My personal computer is Windows mainly because of gaming and game dev, but WSL means I don't have to dual boot to tinker on a web project or something. In a way, it killed the Linux desktop for me, but I still use Linux as much as ever. With Docker as well.
I work at Oracle and leverage WSL for for some things. It works.. but I wish I could just use Linux. WSL is full of gotchas and weird bugs. Performance is not good either.
WSL2 is essentially a VM, and doesn't seem to have any weird bugs or gotcha's anymore (at least for command line programs). I don't use it for work, but playing around with it as a hobby, it seems fairly solid.
I use WSL2. It has bugs. DNS stops working when you connect to a VPN, which I have to do every day for all of my work. To fix that you can either modify the resolv conf (which gets wiped out on every startup) and then chattr it to prevent it from being deleted (this still didn't quite work for me). Or you can install wsl-vpnkit and pipe all of your network traffic through another container.
I have been working in docker and rancher desktop, both of which have integrations with WSL but with other caviats and bugs. I basically have a bunch of very highly specific steps written up for other employees for "how to get this working with WSL" because it is so buggy.
I feel so vinticated reading somebody else going through the DNS hell WSL2+VPN DNS issues. It is a nightmare in professional environments and for the life of me I cannot get my resolv to stop reverting after a while. Thanks for the tip on wsl-vpnkit, much harder to convince VM teams to spin you up a remote dev environment than to just use WSL sometimes.
Weird how tribal people are. Let people enjoy things for God's sake. I use all combinations of macOS, Windows, Fedora, Ubuntu (server + on WSL), Pop_OS!, and what not. Different horses for different courses, and I like each one of these in their ways they excel at.
People who get out, see the world, meet people from other places tend to be far less tribal. Early career, I could have easily been a paid Microsoft Evangelist (is that still a real job title?). Eventually I was forced to begrudgingly learn a whole bunch of other things, then I became obsessed with OSS, shunning my former tribe every chance I got. At some point I just stopped caring about everything. Language, tabs vs spaces, design patterns, IDE, frameworks, I just don't care any more. I still have my go-tos if I'm starting fresh but, if the direction of the wind changes, it doesn't bother me a bit.
I shit on windows because I have had terrible experiences with windows. I dual boot a hackintosh with win10 and win10 is more unstable despite using it less. I use linux on my laptop and headless stuff and the only problems I have are ones that I create.
I think most actual Linux users saw this as expanded access to the Linux environment, and easier ways for Windows users to dip their toes in. That was the feel i got from the general community at the time.
the worst thing about windows is that you can't natively change the window manager or desktop environment. that is so backwards. they even removed the ability to move the taskbar wherever you want. this is so weird.
Cant move the taskbar? Do you mean in windows 11, cos its possible in windows 10. If so i have just another reason to be glad i didnt make the move
Yeah, Windows 11 removed the ability to move your taskbar around, can only be at the bottom of the screen now.
Transcript:
[Miracle of the word wide web meme template]
"Thanks to the miracle of windows subsystem for linux..."
"...I can use the Linux terminal from the comfort of windows"
[Computer monitor showing windows update screen]
"Marvelous"
WSL is nice if you want to build things/run software for Linux, otherwise.. just use Linux
It's a VM. With this tech, Linux will only be more powerful
I don't understand how Linux could make Linux obsolete
Or were they talking about the original WSL, where it was an implementation instead of a specialized VM
Personally, I think WSL is a great start point to introduce users in Windows to take the first step to Linux. Me myself and several people from what I know starts from WSL and end up using Linux full-time
I feel WSL just gives enterprises an excuse not to let developers have pure Linux machines. After putting up with horrible and buggy WSL for years, managed to have my organisation bless running proper Linux on our machines. Bye Windows, hardly ever knew you.
love combining linux with the worst parts of windows
They were really trying to pander to developers back then... What shows it best is their ad for windows terminal that I swear has more production value than most of Nike's advertisements. You know you're desperate when you go this hard on advertising a bloody terminal
Hey now, as someone who works in a 100% Microsoft shop, WSL2 and the Windows Terminal are the only things keeping me sane. Please MS, keep pandering.
Absolutely love the new Terminal app - anyone having to work on windows machines knows much value it finally adds over the ancient cmd/pwshell.
This is one of the core apps I install on any windows rig now
I second this. WSL and windows terminal are both part of my daily toolbox and I love them both dearly.
To put it like /g/, WSL is redpilling the normies on free software.
My favorite windows feature. Being broken.
So true :'-) I used WSL on my company computer. Somehow I managed to snake through corporate restrictions on administration settings and WSL had practicaly full access to system. I even managed to make xserver and GUI apps working :-)
These days you don't even need to do that, thanks to the wslg project microshaft has developed it has Wayland and pulseaudio inbuilt.
That's funny, I did the opposite - I got used to developing on osx, then Linux, but that was always on my work computer - my desktop has always been Windows (I'm still using the same license and chassis from the computer I bought in high school a decade and a half ago).
Then I burnt out hard, and started picking up contracts here and there, but didn't have the money to pick up a second computer powerful enough for gaming or work. So I ran virtualbox and avoided cmd like the plague for a while... It was driving me nuts, so I made plans to run Linux with Windows in a hypervisor - I was looking at pci passthrough so I could give it direct access to the graphics card.
But then wsl came out and it just didn't seem as important. Even as Linux gaming has grown, I just haven't felt the need to switch... It's sometimes finicky and setting everything up on a new computer is a pain, but the only time I considered switching one of my machines over is setting up LLMs - that was a real pain to coax into working, and it'd run better on Linux
If anything, WSL2 made me realize that I didn't need Windows. now, I'm a Linux user for almost 2 years.
It was the only way Microsoft could envision serious cloud devs taking windows seriously at all- not that it worked, but going to AWS re:invent and seeing 7000 MacBooks for every 1 rando win/pc must have been writing on the wall. Iβm a Mac user, but everything I build in the cloud is Linux- for me, osx is close enough with gnu tools to be a good compromise between a userland I like and compatibility I need. Trying to use a windows box to do anything without WSL is like pulling god damned teeth.
Crashing in whole new ways
