
Windows 10 S Will Not Support the Linux Subsystem - ingve
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/116496/windows-10-s-will-not-support-linux-subsystem
======
ryukafalz
>But the Windows Subsystem for Linux is very specifically targeted at
developers, who should be using Windows 10 Pro. And because of the way it’s
implemented, it’s almost certainly not in keeping with the reliability,
performance, and battery life advantages of Windows 10 S.

The stratification of users like this always irritates me. I don't think
"developers" should be a special class of users; today's curious kids are
tomorrow's developers! But if you lock them out of their own systems, they
won't even have a chance to get started.

~~~
jackmott
kids who get these in schools will never get to tinker. this whole trend is a
tragedy

~~~
hdhzy
I agree. Most consumer electronics (phone and tablets) are non developer
friendly - you cannot develop anything on them.

I find this quote by Russell Kirchner to be really good:

> They’re trying to get everyone to use iPads and when people use iPads they
> end up just using technology to consume things instead of making things

From [https://impossiblehq.com/an-unexpected-ass-
kicking/](https://impossiblehq.com/an-unexpected-ass-kicking/)

There is also interesting observation made by Cal Newport in his book Deep
Work [1] that teaching kids how to use iPads is counterintuitive as they -
consumer products - are designed to be super easy to use and one should rather
learn how to master hard things (e.g. programming).

[1]: [http://calnewport.com/books/deep-
work/](http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/)

~~~
rbanffy
Contrast that with an Apple II or a Commodore 64. You turn it on and you are
inside a REPL in less than a second.

~~~
ryukafalz
As someone who didn't grow up with systems like that, I really wish I had. I
was never really introduced to programming until high school, but I feel like
I would've loved it at a younger age.

GUIs are nice in many ways, but in general they seem to encourage consumption
much more than they do creation. I feel like there has to be some way to build
a GUI with the same kind of expressiveness as those early PCs, but I don't
know how.

~~~
digi_owl
I recall seeing some big name in the computing world calling GUIs point-and-
drool interfaces.

And i can't help wonder if we ended up in this situation because the DOS CLI
sucked, and the Mac didn't have a CLI at all.

Thus anyone exposed to home computing back in the day things CLI is something
nasty and borderline useless, and this mentality has transfered over to
desktop _nix, where the CLI is quite the potent interface.

Thus we have big name DE projects trying to insulate the users from the CLI,
and coming up with ever more elaborate schemes of daemons and protocols to do
what a few quick commands in a virtual terminal could solve.

Yet time and again we see that the power-users and similar reject these
elaborate GUIs and their plumbing for simple tiling WMs on top of an X11
session started from a CLI login to run a pile of virtual terminals (and the
odd web browser).

~~~
ams6110
The DOS CLI didn't really suck any worse than the CLI of contemporary machines
such as Apple ][ or Commodore or TRS-80.

------
blackoil
This shouldn't be surprising, as 10S is meant to compete with Chromebook/iOS
devices, where system is completely locked and you can install apps only
approved gateways. This may not be an ideal system for people here, but
schools love this and also makes good for home systems by non-technical users.
Lesser chances of Virus/Worms, corrupted settings, easy to refresh. Enabling a
backdoor to it, would have defeated the purpose

~~~
yellowapple
To clarify: Chromebooks are (last I checked) unlockable.

------
tkubacki
I don't get why developers even bother - just don't use Windows as dev OS - if
you really need windows use it in VirtualBox - I spent years as .NET dev on
Linux desktop that way. Recently tried otherwise with docker for windows and
one day after some magical windows update HyperV just killed my docker VM. For
me Windows is just not reliable enough to be dev machine primary OS - it's not
worth my time.

~~~
ghshephard
I've used (and loved) VMware Workstation and Virtual Box, but WSL is a whole
new level of awesome. There is something about the pureness of it's
integration with windows (well, since creators update) that just makes it a
joy to use as a client OS.

Now, you still need virtualization for a ServerOS - WSL is all running under
Bash.exe, so when that exits - everything is gone.

But, for client OS - It's the bomb.

~~~
skynode
WSL is the best thing since peanut butter. Recently moved all of my dev
command line work to the Subsystem. Even better, VS Code integrates it
perfectly well.

~~~
ams6110
Is it really any better than cygwin? Cygwin was the first thing I installed on
a Windows machine, going back well over a decade. It did a fine job running
bash and all the utility and X11 apps that I cared to use.

~~~
ghshephard
Tons better (I say this as a dedicated Cygwin user since at least 2003).
Cygwin, bash, and tmux are the first three things I install on any windows
system, but with Cygwin, you are limited to whatever Cygwin has repackaged for
you. With WSL, 95% of the stuff in Ubuntu is just an "apt-get install" away.
Only stuff that relies on special network access, or /proc and other system
directories seems to have issues, and they are quickly working away on that.
(Serial Support just landed).

And now that they are planning on supporting Fedora, Suse, and Ubuntu
environments, I can yum install, or just drop in-place any of the Redhat
binaries as well.

That's the big difference - I don't need cygwin compiled apps anymore - I just
drop in the Linux variants and I am good to go.

------
paco3346
I don't understand this decision. I get the argument that it's most likely
developers who want the Linux Subsystem but as soon as you say that only some
apps in the store work in 10 S you start the trail of platform fragmentation.

~~~
0xFFC
Do you realize you can upgrade easily to full version of windows with a little
bit of extra cost? It perfectly makes sense. S is kinda limited sandboxed
version of Windows of only educational environment use.

~~~
II2II
It is worth noting that this is a subset of the educational environment.

Primary and Secondary schools may find this of limited value due to existing
licensing agreements. I used to work in a province which licensed much of the
educational software used by public schools and first nations schools (and the
scope of licensing ranged from school computers only, to teacher computers, to
student computers). While this would probably be addressable with time, the
transition would be a rough one.

Post secondary education is also a mixed basket. The majority of students may
get by with a restricted range of software, yet many departments depend upon
specialized applications. This would create barriers for students regardless
of whether the software is Windows native (but not approved in Microsoft's
store) or Unix software that can run in WSL.

While this isn't a huge issue for students with their own computers, who can
upgrade to for the nominal price, it is likely going to create many issues for
institutions.

------
happy-go-lucky
Here’s the blog post linked in the article.

[https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/18/will...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/18/will-
linux-distros-run-on-windows-10-s/)

> Windows 10 S is not well-suited for many app developers/hackers, admins & IT
> pro’s!

> If you want to run all your dev tools, distros, shells, etc. on a machine
> running Windows 10 S – like the sweeet new Surface Laptop – then upgrade it
> to full Windows 10. You’ll then be able to run Linux distro’s,
> Cmd/PowerShell, install dev tools, debuggers, profilers, packet sniffers,
> etc.

That sums it up.

------
emsy
This is like Surface RT all over again.

~~~
rbanffy
I hope it's at least possible to install something else on them...

It's a shame the Surface RT didn't allow that.

------
baconizer
One of the fun thing to do on ChromeOS is crouton, which opens door to full
blown Linux applications, now before you accuse me of 'pro'/developer user, my
12 year old nephew has more Linux software under crouton with his Chromebook
than I do.

------
pvdebbe
My workplace Windows 10 Pro doesn't support it either. I use cygwin and VM's
so I haven't bothered to ask our IT about it.

~~~
rbanffy
Cygwin was _the_ way to have a Unix-like environment on Windows before the
Linux subsystem existed.

Is Cygwin available in the Windows app store?

~~~
davidgerard
> Cygwin was the way to have a Unix-like environment on Windows before the
> Linux subsystem existed.

Still is. See LibreOffice's first attempt to build using WSL instead of
Cygwin:

[https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2017-Apri...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/libreoffice/2017-April/077558.html)

I'm still entirely unconvinced WSL replaces Cygwin for what Cygwin does and is
useful for.

------
_pmf_
Backpedaling is Microsoft's favorite pastime. Promise a huge convergence in
platform support, alienate a lot of developers in the process, then
artificially refragment it again.

------
Lordarminius
Windows has outlived it's usefulness for everything but games and office apps.

------
dingo_bat
I don't see any justification to use win 10s on any system for any reason.
It's inferior in every way. Why does it exist?

~~~
Sanddancer
It's targeting the chromebook market of a curated marketplace for apps.

~~~
dingo_bat
To be honest I have the same opinion about Chromebooks ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
rbanffy
Chromebooks have the advantage of keeping state in the cloud. The other day I
started editing a document at the office on my desktop and finished it on the
train back home. No need to even think where the document was - it's always
available no matter the device I'm on.

Office 365 is kind of the same, I know. We can think of these machines as
Office 365 clients just as much as we can think of Chromebooks as Google
clients.

But, at least for Chromebooks, you can seamlessly add a fully functional Linux
environment.

------
unixhero
Let me guess

"It's not secure."

~~~
johncolanduoni
I really love the Windows 10 S page, which almost off the bat says "Microsoft
Edge is your default browser since it’s more secure than Chrome or Firefox."
with a footnote, referencing a study that focused on social engineering and
phishing attacks.

~~~
kevhito
This is disingenuous. The report focuses on different browsers' ability to
automatically detect and block URLs of phishing pages and malware downloads.
All three browsers have some kind of automatic URL blocking, and this report
claims that Edge is the best.

At a glance, the results don't look immediately credible to me: I didn't see
an explanation of how they chose the specific URLs, why there is a difference
between the browsers, or the false-positive rate. But the study is, at least,
actually comparing browser "security", and isn't comparing user behavior or
anything like that.

Disclosure: I've never used Edge.

~~~
johncolanduoni
I didn't think that they were studying user behavior, but saying Edge has
better security, full stop, based only on a study that only examines the URL
blocking capabilities (and not e.g. protection from malicious JavaScript) is
pretty silly.

------
simooooo
Hardly surprising

------
muterad_murilax
I guess if they really wanted to keep WSL, they could just "sandbox" it by
disabling access to the Windows filesystem (that is, no /mnt/c and so on).

~~~
johncolanduoni
The linux subsystem is implemented via Windows kernel modules. "Just
sandboxing" has proved to be a pretty hard problem for both kernels, so I'm
pretty skeptical that simply removing /mnt/c would suddenly result in a
reasonable secure system. Especially since the WSL code is quite young.

------
std_throwaway
It's a Pro feature and Microsoft tends to ship a lean distribution tailored to
the customers needs in order to provide superior user experience.

~~~
quickben
The user experience gets better with more options.

A 'superiour' user experience implies lots of options. I.e. luxury car with
all the gadgets, etc.

A stripped down application, void of options, doesn't provide a 'superiour
user experience's. If anything it provides cheap entry model.

~~~
rbanffy
> The user experience gets better with more options.

Not really. Better UX comes from better options, not more, poorly thought out
ones. The options available fit the purpose of the device. A luxury car has
features tailored for comfort. A real luxury car focuses on the back seat. A
sports car has featured tailored for "feeling" and controlling the car.

Having more options brings a superior experience only if your goal is to do
multiple things, some never done before, sometimes in unexpected ways.
Sometimes you use `sed`, others `awk` and there are days `cut` will cut it.

~~~
quickben
I'll only partially agree to that.

In the segment of operating systems, windows differentiated and promoted
'home' 'pro' 'ultimate' , etc. They already paved the terminology and more
importantly trained the users to expect it. Many users after, got really
annoyed with Windows 7 _ultimate_ being upgraded to only win 10 _pro_.

So in the case of Microsoft Windows, _superior_ means something different than
Apples IOS where _superior_ means less (removing of the physical escape key,
audio ports etc).

~~~
rbanffy
Apple is a great example of a "luxury computer". Their machines are solid,
have decent battery life and don't bother with gimmicks like touchscreens
which bring ambiguity to the UI (tooltip shows when you hover, but you can't
do that via the touchscreen, only by dragging a pointer through a trackpad -
argh). Their most recent bold move was the touchbar, that brought in
fingerprint scanning and set of soft keys (esc included) that vary according
to the task you are trying to accomplish. The lack of a physical esc key
doesn't bother me at all.

------
panzer_wyrm
Admit it. You don't want people to load external code.

~~~
PeterisP
Not being able to run arbitrary external code is kind of the whole point when
building a security-oriented system.

You remove (not just hide or disable, but remove) everything that's not
absolutely necessary, and the ideal result is a system that cannot run
anything but a very small list of whitelisted binaries.

~~~
jarym
that may be the 'ideal' result but judging by the number of 0-day exploits it
will not be the reality.

Even Apple let you side load apps onto an iOS device if you're a developer...
Microsoft is definitely setting it up for a stumble (again) similar to WinRT.

~~~
PeterisP
The way to protect against 0-day exploits is to have a smaller attack surface.
If you remove stuff from the OS, you're not vulnerable to 0-days in that stuff
anymore.

They're not intended to be developer machines - imagine the recent UK NHS
WannaCry situation; it would be very, very nice if most of these NHS systems
were running a locked down not-general purpose OS. If you're deploying a
hundred "office PC appliances", then you'd prefer if they could not be simply
sideloaded with stuff to make them developer machines, you'd want a clear
separation between that - e.g. installing the normal Win 10 instead of Win
10S.

------
Kenji
I hate the fact how Windows S is shaping up to be a completely walled garden.
Not even CMD and Powershell?? I hope they still spend enough time on actual
versions of Windows which are used by power users.

~~~
nannal
But all the power users left at either 8 or 10

~~~
Kenji
I didn't leave yet. I think Windows is fine. Runs pretty stable. In the last
decade, I had like 2 bluescreens on windows, and one was caused by
accidentally bumping really hard into my PC, causing a kernel panic because of
a voltage drop, and the other was a broken driver. Linux still has a long way
to go when it comes to UI, drivers and video games.

~~~
quickben
YMMV. Across several of my phones, my Linux servers and my Windows desktops;
My desktops seems to be 'recovering from graphic card crashed' once every few
weeks.

It also depends how you count. Numerically, the games produced for Android far
outnumber the AAA titles.

~~~
Kenji
I'm not gonna lie, I think most Android games are very bad and give 1 hour of
enjoyment at the most. Gaming on a touch screen is some of the worst UX you
can have imho.

~~~
quickben
Oh I agree with you on that one. They are stable games, just not on the
production level with your average PC game.

About the UX, not sure if it's just me, but I want more character or object
control when playing a game. I guess I have played on a keyboard+mouse for far
too long. Phones/consoles just don't have the same level of satisfaction for
me.

------
GlobalServices
Nobody here complains about Apple's OSX vs iOS, where iOS has no shell

~~~
blipmusic
Do you want me to? :)

Every single time I fire up Pythonista on an iOS device I soon realise that
any meaningful coding I do requires access to external data. And then I give
up, until next time some years down the line.

~~~
d0mine
There is StaSh — a Bash-like shell for Pythonista (scp, git, ptinstaller,
mail, pip, etc) e.g., you can run: `pip install youtube-dl`.

Pythonista for iOS can be used for automation (Workflow for programmers).

------
safeharbourio
Gotta love this. not exactly "embrace,extend,extinguish" but,well,ahem,
_cough_

~~~
johncolanduoni
Removing WSL from Windows 10 S is going to extinguish Linux? And what was the
extension?

~~~
quickben
Offering it on cheap laptops?

~~~
rbanffy
It's not like you can't install Linux on low-end Windows laptops. The machine
I take to hackathons is a very light, very cheap, very replaceable Asus that
came with Windows 8.

The next one will probably come with Windows 10 S and never actually boot into
it (like the Windows 8 before it).

~~~
quickben
You can, it's very easy. That's probably why 10S is there, to stopgap chunk of
the population before they see how easy it is.

Was your first laptop a cheap 10S? or chrome? or did you install it yourself
on a thinkpad?

It's all marketshare with them.

~~~
rbanffy
It's probably harder to install Linux on a Chromebook than on a 10S laptop.

