I wonder if there is any performance benefit to this vs virtualbox. I can’t see any reason to use it otherwise. Neat idea though.
In general there is a performance benefit vs virtualbox. Phoronix WSL Benchmarks: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=wsl-february-2018&num=1
I wish they would throw Cygwin in the benchmarks as well. I don’t expect it to do well vs WSL, but it would be nice to know how it compares.
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I’m curious what the use-case is for WSL?
For me the whole point of using Linux is to not be tied to Windows as the core OS and its frequent quirky updates.
Running Linux on top of Windows sounds like its the worst of both worlds.
WSL is really cool, and useful if you develop on Windows, particularly for cross-platform web stuff where everybody else pretty much uses MacOS. Previously you had to run Linux in a VM (or MacOS), now you don’t.
Unfortunately the Windows firewall can’t block WSL (pico) connections to this very day. Bug report has been open since day 1. So I still use VMs.
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This was never the point of Linux. Free software started to provide a free and open alternative to the then closed UNIX systems. and the GPL born off of that to provide immutable rights to the users of those programs.
There’s a small usecase these days for the privacy side of things that you’re thinking of that end users have in mind. The original goals though its seem most privacy forced Linux users just don’t care about, that or there actually isn’t as many of them as they say there is. Most use it for other reasons, unfortunately.
One of the primary use cases for Linux these days is server type systems, web, etc.
I need to add more of this to the wiki topic, but some of the primary goals for WSL would aim around the main use case for Linux, server end goals, so development use cases would be a main use case. So WSL provides access to a large number of Linux tools, or development stacks that work nicer when using them in Linux.
There’s a couple of good examples in this video.
If you’re goal is to not be tied to Windows as you mentioned, then you’d run Linux as your primary OS
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Its legitimately faster than most VM options on windows. I have to have windows for my work machine and most of the games I play cant/wont run on *nix so its pretty slick IMO.
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Can WSL be used to open LUKS drives in windows?
I would think so since its only software level encryption right?
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C Development on Windows without having to hack Visual Studio, rely on a possibly dated IDE, or install (clunky, in my experience) alternatives like Cygwin or MinGW.
You can install build-essentials and gdb-sever and get to work on creating C programs in Windows.
What a time to be alive.
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I’ve added a ‘use cases’ section, please feel free to add use cases people have or know about.
I’ll add to it in a bit.
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I editeded my post’z.
I need to add a section on available distros as there is now an abundance of them. Kali and Debian have been added.
I’ll also likely move the chat to its own space (maybe a general wiki meta talk page?)
I don’t use windows, but I imagine you’d be able to just run a linux firewall, ufw or iptables???
Setting incoming, outgoing, and forward all to default deny and then allowing what you need should suffice; making sure to allow 22 before you enable the firewall.
Not sure if iptables works in the linux subsystem or not, but it’s immaterial as I need an outgoing firewall on the windows host.
As someone who is extremely lazy, I don’t see the point. I would much rather just have a dedicated box or vm.
I use VMs myself right now, but the advantage of WSL is it’s just part of the OS, you need to run node you run node, nothing to think about. All integrated.
Moved this so it can continue to be disucssed, etc.
I do have to admit that there are challenges with WSL.
However, it does allow me to deal with git, zsh and vim on my desktop.
This in turn removes some of the need for having a VM that needs to be powered up and booted before I can use it while WSL is close to instant load.
It is by no means a fully fledged environment to master them all, but it fills certain gaps that has been in dire need of filling.
For me it’s not one way or the other, it complements what I need it for and blends right in where it’s needed.
Long story short, it’s the startup time of it that makes it usefull and no need for 3rd party software to get up and running.
If you read up and listen to some of the conversations from the people who made it, this seems to be one of the primary goals. To bring Linux untilities and tools, and certain types of development to windows, not to replace the need for containers and vms.
Downloaded the Debian WSL. Didn’t know such a thing existed. I cloned my website, installed a few things, and picked up right where I left off from my other workstation. Really surprised how well it flows. I know a lot of people thought it was going to be gimmicky, but I’ve yet to run into any issues.
If any of you listen to Coder Radio, the co-host of that show has a slew of custom Linux scripts that he made 0 modifications to and run flawlessly under the WSL. I think there are bright changes in the next couple of years for the Devops world.
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