On 31 March 2016 at 21:39, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
| From: James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com>
| Lessee now... If I run Windows in a virtual machine, as I do now, then | I'd have Linux running on Windows running on Linux. I guess 2 out of 3 | ain't bad! :-) | | http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-and-canonical-partner-to-bring-ubuntu-to-windows-10/?tag=nl.e539&s_cid=e539&ttag=e539&ftag=TRE17cfd61
A slightly more informative article from the same source: <http://www.zdnet.com/article/ubuntu-not-linux-on-windows-how-it-works/>
Interesting. I don't think that an X application will run. No Linux desktop. Even programs like screen don't work, but that may be easy to fix.
It isn't clear how useful this can be.
If you really want linux on Windows, I would guess virtualbox or the like would do a better job.
If you want command-line tools to muck within the Windows environment, cygwin probably does the job as well. Both would have a translation layer, at least for pathnames. And PowerShell ought to be a better choice. It won't have an impedance mismatch with Windows. The design of PowerShell (Monad) looked good to me when it came out (but I have never tried it).
Here's the logic as it seems to me. At work, we use mostly Macs because it's easier to deal with our mostly Linux-based servers - Mac supports almost all the same command line utilities, and most people (read "most people not on this list") sadly prefer Macs to Linux. Some offices use Linux to deal with their remote servers. Most people try to avoid Windows because of, as you put it, an "impedance mismatch." So - if this Ubuntu-on-Windows is as transparent as the puff pieces we've seen so far suggest, you can now use Linux utilities on Windows - you can bundle your gems, you can lint your Javascript, you can do a lot more server-side stuff locally. More easily (although it sounds like some path translation will still be necessary). So corporate IT departments get more of what they want (a Windows monoculture), and Microsoft brings some of the Apple and Linux faithful back into the fold because it's "good enough." And then, because you're already running your dev environment on Windows with the Linux tools you love, some people think "hey, wouldn't it be great if we had exactly the same environment in the server room?" Or, as a friend of mine put it, 'the concept of "embrace, extend, extinguish" hasn't been lost.' -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com