
The Future of Docker Desktop for Windows - pestkranker
https://engineering.docker.com/2019/06/docker-hearts-wsl-2/
======
mrkstu
So, I think the main sticking point here is the lock-in of Hyper-V. By making
a new popular feature completely dependent on a technology that explicitly
disables the use of competitive hypervisors, they're giving with one hand and
taking with the other.

If I was on VM-Ware's executive team, I'd be seriously thinking about filing
an anti-trust complaint and the open source community should be thinking about
whether submarining virtualbox is worth what Microsoft is doing here.

~~~
damnyou
Don't all hypervisors disable other hypervisors?

~~~
tym0
Hypervisor Framework and VirtualBox seem to cohabit just fine on MacOS.

~~~
runjake
Yeah. VirtualBox installs its own kernel extension at this point in time.

~~~
damnyou
But can you run VBox and (say) Docker at the same time?

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AlphaSite
Yep. I ran docker and Fusion at the same time and it works great.

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y4mi
I'm forced to use Windows at work and am so looking forward to wsl2.

Starting a new terminal with wsl1 takes so long and I'm less than happy with
all terminal emulators.

ConEmu has broken copy paste, alacrity doesn't have proper tiling... Heck,
I've started using hyper of all things.

I realize that I probably never be _happy_ on Windows when I can actually use
i3wm at home, but if it could just _suck less_ I'd be so ecstatic.

~~~
WWLink
I am also pretty happy with WSL, but I'm even happier that I was able to get a
mac at work lol.

Although I admit, sometimes the BSD toolchain poses some rather hilarious
speedbumps. At that point WSL can be smoother? Weird.

~~~
m_mueller
I switched from Mac to WSL last year and yes, in some ways it is smoother.
Having for example apt-get on top of the NT kernel is better than Homebrew on
Darwin. It's worse in other ways that are slowly getting fixed, such as the
sad state of terminal emulators on Windows. At least one thing will probably
always be better on Mac: Settings/Defaults system with Plist files vs. Windows
settings and the Registry. But to me that doesn't justify the lack of good
laptop hardware choices anymore - PC laptops are so much better nowadays.

~~~
acdha
> Having for example apt-get on top of the NT kernel is better than Homebrew
> on Darwin

Can you go into more detail about why that's the case — package selection,
versioning policies, etc.? The main thing I've typically found is testing
version-matched deployments and Docker has made me care about that a lot less.

~~~
m_mueller
Sure, we're heavily docker based too, but for development toolchain it's
really valuable to have such a well supported package manager as apt. It's not
just about package availability but community support - you have the same
tooling locally that is widely used server side, so lots more documentation
exists for it. Same goes for Linux userland vs. BSD.

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joemaller1
We work with a lot of independent contractors, many of whom get by fine with
Window Home, so this is great news:

> ...because WSL 2 works on Windows 10 Home edition, so will Docker Desktop

Glad to see this too:

> bind mounts from WSL will support inotify events and have nearly identical
> I/O performance as on a native Linux machine

~~~
Fr0styMatt88
I didn't think Hyper-V was available on Windows 10 Home Edition; has this
changed or was it always available?

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dstaley
It's not. It's possible Microsoft is making an exception for WSL2, but I
highly doubt the user will be able to run arbitrary VMs on HyperV without a
Pro edition of Windows.

~~~
penagwin
According to others in this thread, if HyperV is enabled then the windows host
actually partially runs on HyperV (which is part of the reason you can't use
other hypervisors with HyperV turned on).

The running theory is that they want HyperV on for all installs (like turned
on by default).

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blinkingled
Boy I'm happy Microsoft is making Windows 10 into a great development platform
for the web!

One of the rare things to feel upbeat about is that we have great choice when
it comes to OSes.

~~~
e40
Competition at the OS level is good. Windows getting better will only make
others try harder.

As a former Windows user, then macOS convert, I look at what's happening on
Windows with envy. macOS is getting prettier and perhaps more consistent, but
buggier. It's very frustrating. I've had so many problems with security
updates, with both the latest and other supported versions. Apple support is
terrible these days. I filed a bug report with them and weeks later they give
me absolutely lame replies.

The only thing that gives me pause, still, about Windows 10: it updates when
it wants to and that is difficult to turn off (you can set your network to
"metered" and I hear that will do it). Also the telemetry. I feel like it
spies on its users more than Apple's product does.

~~~
blinkingled
The updates btw got a lot better even for Windows 10 Home users. It can be
argued if letting users turn off the updates is a overall good idea or not but
at least you have more flexibility in postponing them with 1903.

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_eht
I’ve been following this longstanding Docker issue:
[https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910](https://github.com/docker/docker.github.io/issues/6910)

The comments make it pretty clear how the Github crew feels about it, but I’m
curious the response over here.

~~~
acdha
It seems unrelated to this article?

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jmb12686
This is great news. No more CIFS bind mounts required for volume sharing with
Windows drives. This is a particular issue with on corporate / Enterprise
windows boxes.

~~~
unilynx
It was also pretty unstable. Low memory conditions inside the docker VM => SMB
times out => I/O terminatedn => File corruption. At least it did support mmap,
which was an issue with the original virtualbox-backed docker for Mac...

Now, fingers crossed for transparent inotify...

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heywire
From what I understand, this will only affect Linux containers running on
Windows. Is that correct? What about Windows containers? I know they're not
nearly as popular, but we did evaluate them at one time for running a legacy
Windows application. I doubt we're alone in that use case.

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2wrist
So... will WSL2 need to be installed as per WSL? because WSL will not install
on my work machine as the machine is locked down by the firm.. So will I lose
local Docker?

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vbezhenar
I'm very skeptical of this new technology. I used VirtualBox for years and I
will continue to do so. I just don't see any reason to switch to that new
technology. Mounts? VirtualBox can do that. Fast boot? Well, VirtualBox boots
in seconds, that's more than enough for me. Dynamic memory allocation?
VirtualBox has memory balooning, if I ever would run into memory limits, I can
always do that. And zero problems with all those Hyper-V conflicts, like
Android emulators, snapshot support, VM import/export, actually any OS rather
than just Linux, etc.

~~~
AdrianB1
I used VMware since 2007, HyperV and VirtualBox for more than 5 years and I
don't have such strong opinions, I use the one that is available and does the
job. Because I had less problems with VMware and HyperV, I almost gave up to
VirtualBox, YMMV.

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nikolay
It's sad that all this needs Windows 10 Pro, which makes all learner
developers unable to use Docker to learn properly unless they upgrade.

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geggam
Amazes me how far people go to avoid simply running Linux, why isnt that the
preferred option here ?

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alexhutcheson
Because they want a laptop with decent power management that doesn't freak out
when connecting or disconnecting additional displays, but they don't
necessarily want a Dell XPS or a ThinkPad. They might also appreciate the
ability to quickly nuke their Linux environment and create a new one if they
really mess up their configs somehow.

~~~
geggam
None of the issues you speak of are relevant to running linux on a laptop
instead of windows. Linux has decent PM and I havent had glitchy issues with
displays in years.

The idea of nuking the linux environment gets easier when you run one natively
as you start to understand the system better.

I understand the idea where everyone wants to have the same ecosystem to run
things on (docker) but the best part of linux was the fact it wasnt the same
as windows

This convergence of the operating systems is concerning

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meddlepal
I dual boot Linux and Windows 10 on my personal Lenovo X1 and my Linux setup
definitely has its moments with multiple displays... It mostly works until it
does not then it's a headache.

Power management seems OK but I dunno how that relates to the fan controller
because in Linux my laptop sounds like a jet engine 90% of the time while in
Windows it rarely spins up.

~~~
geggam
Probably could use some configuration on fan control or CPU throttling :)

I have more issues with windows than I do linux but I have been using linux on
a desktop for ~15 years or more now ( would say 19 but there was a BSD period
in there )

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Zardoz84
So WSL2 would use a lightweight VM running a Linux kernel to avoid the slow
windows I/O.

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mfatica
Will I have full access to the GPU?

~~~
tym0
Based on this FAQ, no.

[https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/wsl/wsl2-faq#can-i-...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/wsl/wsl2-faq#can-i-access-the-gpu-in-wsl-2-are-there-plans-to-
increase-hardware-support)

~~~
zamalek
Note that during the talk they said they heard the cries for GPU access loud
and clear (they mentioned AI). It will hopefully come later.

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mimixco
This is a big step toward the full merger of Windows and Linux on the desktop,
which is the most logical way forward for both platforms. Kudos to Docker for
taking a primary role and following Microsoft in this direction.

~~~
mikhailt
Can you explain how this is the most logical way forward for Linux?

For me, it feels it could be the opposite with Windows potentially impacting
how Linux moves forward by having more devs using WSL instead of actual Linux
and not actually optimizing for native Linux support.

For an example, Valve's Proton vs. native linux games, if I was a game dev, I
wouldn't bother porting any Windows games to Linux, just rely on Proton
instead.

~~~
antisemiotic
>For an example, Valve's Proton vs. native linux games, if I was a game dev, I
wouldn't bother porting any Windows games to Linux, just rely on Proton
instead

I see what you mean, but on the other hand, most game development studios
already didn't bother to port anyway.

