
Ask HN: Is anyone using the Windows 10 Subsytem for Linux? - rayvy
So I recently got a new machine (Windows 10 PC) and I came across this reference[1] for downloading the Windows 10 subsystem for Linux. I downloaded and installed everything fine per the docs, but now my question is:<p><i>What are the limitations on this instance of Linux?</i><p>Can I use all my machine&#x27;s resources (RAM, Disk, CPU)? Or are only a certain amount of these resources allocated for the Linux instance? I ask because being able to run Linux on this machine this easily sounds a bit...too good to be true. Any documentation references will be much appreciated.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;windows&#x2F;wsl&#x2F;install-win10
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j0057
It's cool, but it's not what you'd normally understand "Linux" to be. It
implements the Linux kernel syscalls, so it supports most of glibc and some of
the GNU userland, but misses a lot of the stuff that makes Linux, well, Linux.
You can't use iptables. No namespaces AKA containers. When you get to
userland, your session is just a bash login shell. There's no DBus, no
systemd, no X11, no clipboard. You have to do some fairly ugly hacking to
share an ssh-agent between two consoles. And so on and on and on. It's cool
for some things, but not good enough for some other things, and I don't see it
growing support for those in the future either.

~~~
opless
X11 just requires a Windows based X-Server. Then you can use your favourite
xterm emulator and worry less about your ssh agent woes.

No Dbus - because no drivers. No systemd - hurrah No proper init system -
sucks, but at least you get fstab mounting drives.

I think we'll see a better init mechanism in future, and I hope loadable
module support for filesystems / usb devices

~~~
j0057
(Well that was a _really_ subtle dig at systemd.)

------
godot
I've used it a bit but not seriously/professionally. My biggest issue was that
after installing NVM and node, startup of the terminal took literally seconds.
It was so bad that I had to move the NVM init lines from bashrc to an alias
and I only run it when I know I'm working on node stuff. Not sure if it was
just me or everyone else too.

Other gripes include relatively little customization for the terminal window.
You can customize colors and fonts. But I don't remember it even supporting
tabs.

Also the disk volume of your Linux subsystem is relatively separate from
Windows, so if you wanna have an IDE edit code in a folder and run such code
in the Linux terminal, you have to cd into some strange volume path to get
there. Can work around it by creating a symlink from your home dir.

Ultimately my opinion is if you want Windows/Linux and not buy into the Mac
ecosystem, it's better to just dual boot Win/Linux and only boot into Windows
if you need to use some software not on Linux.

~~~
rayvy
Also where can I find the dir for this Linux subsystem? (still a Windows noob)

~~~
bitcrazed
In short ... DON'T!

Assume that your distro's are locked away behind a one-way wall - Linux can
see Windows files, but Windows cannot (safely) use Linux files. More details
here:
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do-n...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/11/17/do-
not-change-linux-files-using-windows-apps-and-tools/)

And yes, we're working to close this gap in future releases, so stay tuned!

------
adventured
I use WSL on a constant basis. I haven't had any problems with it so far. As
others have noted, it can take a second or two for the terminal to start up.
That's probably my only gripe so far. I usually leave the terminal running for
long stretches of time, so that start up time is ultimately meaningless.

That said, I'm not doing anything unusual with it, I haven't installed
anything out of the ordinary. As such I can't speak to the depth of
compatibility.

------
crispinb
I'm using it full-time, albeit not for anything esoteric - mostly for zsh &
bash, all my commandline stuff, node/npm etc. For these purposes it's pretty
much equivalent to doing the same on macOS (though if you're used to Linux,
the core utilities will be more familiar on WSL than on the mac). By and large
Microsoft have done an impressive job with WSL. Windows vs unix filepaths can
be a pest for some things (particularly integrating commandline with GUI
apps), but I don't think I've come across anything without a workaround so
far.

I wouldn't really call it 'running Linux' \- for that you'll need to actually
install & run Linux (either on the metal or in a VM). But for many of the
purposes for which you might want to run Linux, WSL is more than adequate.

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mboperator
I recently switched from Fedora 26 to Windows 10. I've been using WSL for the
past 3 days for webdev and so far its been pretty smooth.

Feels pretty similar to doing web with a Macbook Pro. No issues with local
servers or anything.

One odd thing is that the Linux home directory is different from your Windows
user directory. If you use the terminal from within VSCode this is a none
issue since it starts in the project working directory anyway.

Honestly, the thing I miss most from Linux / OS X is the dropdown Quake style
terminal. Wish Windows had better terminal emulators.

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opless
WSL does very well for me.

Lack of booting services can be irksome, no underlying support for docker, no
KVM etc. (Not having to deal with systemd is a bonus IMHO)

However pretty much everything else I've thrown at it works.

Even running X apps (you need a Windows native X server, but that's fine.

You can use up all the disk space, other drives, as much RAM as you need ...
It's all available.

The minor annoyance for me is the lack of specific file system support (fuse
would do at a pinch) and maybe libusb support too. But those are easily solved
with spinning up Linux in your favourite hypervisor.

~~~
bitcrazed
We hear you re. disk perf, and Linux filesystem access from Windows - we're
working on it. Bear with us.

Also, we added a decent amount of libusb support back in Creators Update:
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/10/bash...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/10/bashwsl-
insiders-build-now-supports-usbserial-comms-and-mounting-removable-storage-
network-shares/)

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geetfun
I do use it on a consistent basis, after my MacBook had keyboard issues in
May. I forced myself to create an entire web app on it over the course of 1
month to see how it felt.

Surprisingly, it was quite a pleasure to work with. There are certainly small
little quirks that takes some getting used to and some keyboard short cuts
that aren’t present from my Mac setup. Nonetheless, WSL is good enough that I
would happily recommend it to colleagues.

------
Koshkin
Cygwin works _much_ better for me than WSL - it strikes a perfect balance
between being a full-featured UNIX and, at the same time, being part of
Windows.

~~~
le-mark
Same here, Although I have yet to see a deliberate comparison between the two.

------
juststeve
can't see the point sorry, i would just install linux as the base os and
windows as a guest.

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holamson
You cannot use GPU for computation inside WSL.
[https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-
con...](https://wpdev.uservoice.com/forums/266908-command-prompt-console-bash-
on-ubuntu-on-windo/suggestions/16108045-opencl-cuda-gpu-support) It's one of
the most requested feature and not having that is a big negative for me. (I've
used WSL and then switched to simply having dual boot Windosw+Ubuntu)

------
deepaksurti
\- Bash terminal in WSL is very limited in color support, no tabs. use ConEmu
or X11 + Terminator \- Due to lack of good color support, themes like Airline
dont render well \- Could never get ssh-agent to work fine, that literally
sucks FWIW:

Coming from a Mac, it still did not gave me the UX that I was used. Everything
seems to be patched on.

Due to KB issues, at this new job, I bit the bullet and tried to move to Win +
WSL. Unfortunately, did not work out for me and I am going back to Mac (new
2018 ones).

~~~
bitcrazed
Re. Color: Not true - Windows Console supports 16M 25-bit RGB colors since
Creators Update (build 1703):
[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/09/22/24-b...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2016/09/22/24-bit-
color-in-the-windows-console/)

That said, yes, the Console cannot currently support font-fallback and thus
cannot display glyphs that are not present in your currently selected font. We
are, however, working on fixing this in an up-coming OS release.

Bear with us - lots of exciting things afoot with the Windows Console.

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JdeBP
Note that it is _not_ an "instance of Linux". Microsoft's nomenclature for
these NT subsystems is effectively to name the part that the Windows NT kernel
substitutes for. There is _no Linux_ in the Windows Subsystem _for Linux_.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417059)

------
akulbe
Constantly. Good enough to have switched from macOS to Windows 10 + WSL.

Like one other commenter, I use it with ConEmu.

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banterfoil
I have a raspberry pi in my home network with an SSH server. I then just use
Putty or Git Bash and ssh into the pi to do my Linux related work from
Windows. I need to work a little more with systemd and block devices, so I
didn't think WSL would cut it for me.

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qqqqqqqqqqqq23
Disk is _very_ slow. Phoronix did some benchmarks recently, check them.
Virtualbox is faster for some stuff, and more convenient.

I don't recall performance comparisons with Cygwin, which is still my default
shell for Windows.

------
kevinherron
I tried it once a couple years ago. First thing I did was 'git status' in a
large project.

I died waiting for it to finish and have since been reincarnated.

~~~
bitcrazed
You should give WSL a try now - a couple of years ago would have been shortly
after it was first released, when it was VERY early, and only barely able to
run some of the more sophisticated tools you'd want/need.

WSL has come a LOOONG way since then, and yes, we are still working to improve
disk IO perf.

------
Paraesthetic
Its damn good, I'd recommend it to anyone. Its missing a few features, but
works as expected

~~~
lovelearning
Would you recommend WSL over a full linux distro, and if so, why? Not a
rhetorical question. When I first heard about WSL, my first thought was: but
why would people use this? I'm surprised it's so popular, and am just trying
to understand what people find so compelling about WSL over the real thing.

~~~
holamson
I suppose it's good if you want to use windows applications and code inside
linux at the same time. Other than that, having dual boot is probably better.

