Ubuntu on Windows

ginggs

ginggs

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http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ubuntu-on-windows.html
An Ubuntu user space and bash shell, running natively in a Windows 10 c*m*d.e*x*e console!
bash.png
Did you get that?!? Don't worry, it took me a few laps around that track, before I fully comprehended it when I first heard such crazy talk a few months ago :-)

Here's let's break it down slowly...

  1. Windows 10 users
  2. Can open the Windows Start menu
  3. And type "bash" [enter]
  4. Which opens a c*m*d.e*x*e console
  5. Running Ubuntu's /bin/bash
  6. With full access to all of Ubuntu user space
  7. Yes, that means apt, ssh, rsync, find, grep, awk, sed, sort, xargs, md5sum, gpg, curl, wget, apache, mysql, python, perl, ruby, php, gcc, tar, vim, emacs, diff, patch...
  8. And most of the tens of thousands binary packages available in the Ubuntu archives!

"Right, so just Ubuntu running in a virtual machine?" Nope! This isn't a virtual machine at all. There's no Linux kernel booting in a VM under a hypervisor. It's just the Ubuntu user space.

"Ah, okay, so this is Ubuntu in a container then?" Nope! This isn't a container either. It's native Ubuntu binaries running directly in Windows.

"Hum, well it's like cygwin perhaps?" Nope! Cygwin includes open source utilities are recompiled from source to run natively in Windows. Here, we're talking about bit-for-bit, checksum-for-checksum Ubuntu ELF binaries running directly in Windows.

[long pause]

"So maybe something like a Linux emulator?" Now you're getting warmer! A team of sharp developers at Microsoft has been hard at work adapting some Microsoft research technology to basically perform real time translation of Linux syscalls into Windows OS syscalls. Linux geeks can think of it sort of the inverse of "wine" -- Ubuntu binaries running natively in Windows. Microsoft calls it their "Windows Subsystem for Linux". (No, it's not open source at this time.)
Click to expand...

Edit: CloudFart doesn't like it if you mention the name of Windows' command prompt executable.
 
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but can it run wine? :p

Truly fantastic news, I've been patiently waiting for native ssh client/server, but this is way better! Good on you MS :)
 
So it's a proprietary MS copy of Linux sys calls. Sounds like more freedom being infringed.
 
Bash in Win was developed for Msft by Canonical.

Are they genuinely and honestly opening up to open source? As a former Microsofter (retired 1997) I don't doubt it one bit. Microsoft inside (at that time) was very different from what outsiders think and project. At that time MSFT had the highest volume Unix business (Xenix) on the planet, and the biggest Apple fans outside of Apple were in Msft. The place is heavily populated by devs and engineers who are passionate first and foremost about software itself. Most did their college work on ux/ix in various isotopes.

Unlike say Google, MSFT makes its money from software, and it goes where the market and money is. Azure is the future, and they'd rather play nicely with ux/ix and get a slice of revenues than just shut it out.

I'm not in the least surprised that the Linux head honcho at Oracle has just joined Microsoft:

Wim Coekaerts jumps to Redmond.

Very interesting.
 
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Something else they should adopt from linux is software repositories where all software & drivers are kept signed with security keys. The Store is no substitute.
 
ponder said:
Something else they should adopt from linux is software repositories where all software & drivers are kept signed with security keys. The Store is no substitute.
Click to expand...
Didn't they do this with Win10? I thought that was one of the "selling" points?

You are right, once you have app repositories you never want to look back.
 
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