Born to Gentoo+i3, forced (by work) to WSL
This sort of elitism really hurts adoption
On another side it stops people from switching cause as better it’s working less reason to switch
How? WSL is absolutely awful for adoption. Theres no GUI, it bearly runs GUI apps, and you have to manually configure it. If my first experience with Linux was WSL I would never touch Linux again.
And i always thought Real™️ linux users dont need a desktop manager? No wait they need arch with a tiled window manager because it looks cool but actually dont do annything besides configure their install.
If you actually do work, getting used to a tiling WM is like a drug. I can’t live without it now.
(that’s a lie, I do at work cus I’m forced to use Windows, so WSL with tmux is an acceptable alternative)
Ok but what is your job then? I do software development and in no way would it make my work faster if i can type 2 more words a minute because i dont type that much. Most time is used to read sourcecode, chassing references through the codebase and reading api references in the browser. If i have to do more hardware related stuff i would never want to use a keyboard to scroll through datasheets.
Software development too, but also lots of sysadmin-like stuff so I spend lots of time in terminals/SSH. And I’m a vim fanatic.
Of course I also spend a lot of time in the browser, but also man pages/local docs in a pager
Ahh ok yea i also do some terminal shenanigans most in gdb to fix all the segfaults i make, git stuff and reading tons of compiler and cmake errors. Most time is spent thinking about what i broke and how, instead of typing.
I am a electrical engineering student in my last semester but i have been working at my position since starting uni. So my work is more low level stuff wirh c/c++, embedded linux and some pcb layouting. I dont think that i would ever use vim, sublime or vscode/vscodium is the sweet spot for me.
Electrical engineering and embedded programming is quite far from what I do, so that makes sense! One of my friends graduated EE 10+ years ago and his pace is much slower, but he’s much smarter than me lol.
I can get up to a pretty high apm when I get in the zone, and admittedly I enjoy the feeling of being a hackerman zipping through terminals…
Real™ Linux users stare at their desktop until they reboot into Windows so they can acturally run software :3
It has proper gui support now?
Let me clearify, you cant run full desktop environments on it. You cant even run a window manager like Sway on it.
You can but it’s a very cursed way to do it. You need to run an X server on windows and set up x11 forwarding. I remember trying it ages ago and it sort of worked. I ended up giving up on it as I ended up just using a live boot.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/61110603/how-to-set-up-working-x11-forwarding-on-wsl2
The only way it could really do it would be for the Windows shell to get out of the way, which it won’t.
You can with effort have some sort of abomination where you get inflicted with both UI designs at the same time…
That seems like its not stable and the software is likely to either be undermaintained or unmaintained
Vcxsrv has been around for ages. It’s also more documented now. I tried it right when wsl2 released.
Yes
You can sudo apt install firefox. And you will get a firefox (wsl ) icon on your start menu
When working with Linux I want a CLI and GUI for some applications. No need. To be fair, I primarily use windows because VS22 with resharpen is pretty nice (with graphical debugging).
Yes but thats sorta the point, WSL users like you are Windows users. Not really Linux users, you run a glorified VM. It makes perfect sense for devs to get annoyed when WSL users complain about WSL bugs to package or distro maintainers. Theres nothing wrong with that obviously but its still misleading whenever a WSL user calls themselves a Linux user (not to say that applies to you)
This pleb thinks we should listen to them. Frankly, this neighborhood is done for!
I knew, as soon as they installed that damned GUI, that we’d have Windowers coming around with their “Windows key this and WSL that”. I’m going to have to move to BSD at this rate, I hear they have a more permissive license. I was telling my friend Margaret just the other day that I was meaning to move to BSD. That and that I wanted to get a shrubbery, for the garden.
A shrubbery‽
The same
When someone ask for help with a Linux issue: 🤩
It’s a wsl bug: 🤭
Open source now tho
What’s the benefit for that? Can you fork it and run a copy in windows (or is it too integrated in wondows) or is it just Microsoft wanting your free labour (bugfixes etc)?
Mom! Windows is doing EEE again.
At least you can look at how it works under the hood I guess
Oh yeah, that is true !
Linux community: why don’t more people use Linux? Also Linux community: LOL LOOK AT THESE STUPID FUCKERS TRYING LINUX WRONG, LETS ALL GO SHIT ON THEM
goddamn do yall deserve eachother and your 0.01% OS share or whatever meaningless percentage of the OS market you represent.
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All I know is that the WSL is a massive step-up from Cygwin or Mingw32. We’ve been here before. The most recent incarnation before WSL was a klunky VirtualBox VM steered by Packer. The idea that you can mash a few buttons and get an Ubuntu VM with filesystem mapping that “just works” is a huge improvement.
Edit: I really don’t get the vitriol anyone gets for using the WSL when it’s a problem the FOSS community has tried to solve three times over in the last 25+ years or so.
People in glass housed shouldn’t throw stones.
One of the main points of using Linux is so that you don’t have to use Windows. Like I get WSL is useful in certain scenarios, but it’s whole existence is basically counter to why the majority of Linux users use Linux.
Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooosh
How?
Encouraging the use of WSL to new Linux users is asinine. It’s a niche tool with a shitload of bugs and caveats, not something that should be widely used as a daily driver. It’s not “shitting on” anyone to tell them they shouldn’t be using WSL as their daily driver distro, just like it’s not “shitting on” someone to tell them not to use a hammer to drive in a screw.
I made a comment about the gatekeeping attitude of the community and you responded to me with a critique of WSL. The point I made sailed entirely over your head, hence the whoosh.
Saying “don’t use WSL as your first Linux distro” isn’t gatekeeping though, it’s just good advice.
Sure, that’s a valid position to have. Your position only relates to the OP meme in the loosest possible sense; the meme presents WSL users as inferior objects of disgust, which is clearly distinct from a claim that WSL is not the right starter distro for most people. As I see it you’re effectively whitewashing an elitist talking point by pretending it’s about helping new users, or you just didn’t notice the elitism because you are not part of the targeted out-group.
Lol brother, you were the one that introduced the context of “new Linux users”.
Linux community: why don’t more people use Linux?
I’m not whitewashing anything, I’m not being elitist. The only thing I’m trying to say is that if the Linux community wants to attract more users, we should absolutely be turning up our noses at WSL, like Homelander here in this meme. Because it’s a niche tool, not something a new Linux user should be daily driving.
Do you realize it’s just a funny meme picture on the internet? We are on [email protected] and the picture is so mild, it’s just a friendly poke for fun and you just try to tear us a new asshole for that, damn, chill.
It’s not funny, it’s gatekeeping.
this homeless trans is laughing because of all the concerns in the world you’re bent over a weak joke that contains nuance considering the character showing disgust and disdain. he’s a baddy! 🤣
I’m glad you found a laugh and a moment of lightness while you’re struggling, and I hope the world becomes a kinder place for you as soon as possible. This is still a joke where the punchline is “windows user (ie, outgroup) disgusting”, and I hope you can understand why it’s bad to put that kind of energy out in the world then pretend it’s a joke.
You’re gatekeeping.
its funny even if its a dead horse. don’t sweat it. folks will tell on themselves given the right prompt.
As a counterpoint to all of the people saying that you’re overreacting:
They’re right.
However, I think the sentiment of your comment is valid and correct. Memes like this do ultimately serve to alienate newer Linux users.
I think people are mostly responding to the way that your comment is worded, which conveys a much stronger reaction than is necessary for something that ultimately doesn’t cause very much harm.
Nobody is happy when you call them out for marginalizing people they view as inferior. I get the same reaction when call out family members being blatantly racist at family gatherings. I don’t care about the reactions of people who choose to engage only with my tone, they’re not here to interact with me or my opinions in a meaningful way. Last, I don’t believe I overreacted at all. I called out shitty alienating behaviour in response to a meme that implies an outgroup community is disgusting or inferior based on their operating system choice. As I see it the tone of the meme was significantly more insulting than the tone of my response.
You have to consider that your tone is important when trying to make a point.
It doesn’t help to call someone out in a way that’s callous and without any consideration toward how they may feel about being called out. All it does is elicit a strong emotional reaction which often results in them doubling down and being defensive of their behavior.
If you call someone out gently, and they’re not willing to listen, then you can ratchet it up a little depending on the severity of the behavior… until you reach a point where it’s clear that you’re not going to get anywhere.
So yeah, again, it’s toxic behavior to alienate a subset of Linux users when the community is already very fragmented. But your comment wasn’t just saying the behavior was shitty, it was also implying that the people who engage it in are shitty people. I understand that’s (hopefully) not what you meant, but humans tend to think that behavior==identity and it takes effort to override that. Naturally, when the quality of one’s person is in question, they’re going to be quite defensive.
I feel like I’m being admonished by a schoolteacher and honestly I probably deserve it. You’re probably right but I’m grumpy about it and need to re-read this later when I’m less grumpy about it
Look what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power
Look what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power
I think that sounds more like Cygwin.
I forgot about Cygwin… ugh
I don’t think anyone is a “wsl user” so much as they’ve found themselves in a position where the lowest friction solution is utilizing wsl for a given situation.
Around 2019, even up until like 2022 if you wanted to run docker in windows, that was how to do it.
I learned the shell in wsl before I switched to Linux full time. I wasn’t trying to learn it intentionally. Just didn’t want to develop software on windows. It’s a great gateway drug that reduces friction by a lot.
The terminal is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.
It’s not a story the Vibe Coders would tell you
That’s where I was a few years ago, and then I switched back to proper Linux. I was only keeping Windows at all for games, but then most of the games I played started working fine on Linux (thank you, Valve).
Plus, I tried doing some TensorFlow stuff with CUDA (Nvidia) GPU acceleration. In theory, you can do it in pure Windows, but nobody has bothered trying to do that. You’re on your own if you try it. The usual way is to do GPU passthrough to WSL. There have been three different ways to do that over the years, only one of which currently works. If you happen to Google a page that tells you one of the wrong ways, there’s a good chance you’ll need to reinstall to get it working the right way.
Using pure Linux for this stuff is no problem. Just use Nvidia’s server drivers instead of gaming drivers. All the AI datacenters are using Nvidia GPUs on Linux, so Nvidia is highly motivated to make this work. Someday, Windows might be as easy to use as Linux.
Just use Nvidia’s server drivers instead of gaming drivers. All the AI datacenters are using Nvidia GPUs on Linux, so Nvidia is highly motivated to make this work
This was not on my bingo card even just 5 years ago.
Pretty much my situation. Work stuff, Windows machine, but Linux/Docker workflow and I refuse to let go of my POSIX shell.
All the good stuff available and you choose a POSIX shell? To each their own I guess.
Granted, I still prefer it to PowerShell, but only in how it feels, not conceptually.
Eh I’m not hard set on full spec compliance. I use ZSH, it’s not technically POSIX compliant but close enough that I virtually never have to think about it. Technically correct would probably have been “sh derivative” or something.
I still prefer it to PowerShell
Who hurt you?
Why?
Not enough caffeine. Please disregard.
What’s the current best way to run docker on Windows?
I’m still using wsl(2) for that in 2025 because it seems to be the path of least resistance on Win11.
Just install the docker engine in wsl like anywhere else and avoid docker desktop if you can
That could very well be the best practice. I haven’t had to run docker in windows since then.
Aww, cry harder.
I started using Linux when it was Redhat, in the 1990s, and it came on a bunch of CDs.
And I use WSL in addition to Debian, Raspbian, and Ubuntu.
Knock this tribal bullshit off.
I started with Slackware. It came on floppies.
Now move to the back of the line youngster.
I’ll never forget the first time I finally got Linux 0.1 to boot on my abacus.
Yeah, why would they post something like this to the community for serious takes about Linux?
Aww, cry harder.
Some real pleasant people here.
Some people hate practically it seems
CD’s?! Ooh La La Mister Fancy French man with the digital media! Back in our day linux came on a plastic 45 inside Fruity Pebbles cereal and it had loose crusty sugar in the grooves that introduced errors in X that meant the screen scrolled like an out-of-whack tv and you had to wait for the prompt to roll by so you could try another resolution that would core dump and spit you back to the A:\ drive and eject the disc into your shins like a frisbee! And that’s the way we liked it!
When using WSL, be sure to not mention anything about that when reporting bugs because that’ll just confuse the issue for the maintainers. They like having that casually mentioned about 20 messages into the troubleshooting process.
Pff, issue reports should ask for the output of ‘uname -ar’. It clearly shows its wsl as wsl runs a special kernel
I’m a big fan of going on WSL forums and letting them know everything is working well for give or take 20 messages, then I let them know I need help troubleshooting.
Windows users when they see a wine user???
I’m glad wsl exists so I don’t have to bother with windows and people can still run my programs.
Apt. Wine is pretty disgusting as a beginner linuxer.
Proton however is incredible. An invisible solution that just works with no petformance impact.
And “hardcore tinkering” is just changing the version from a dropdown menu to get old games to work.
Small blessings. Seeing a WSL user means that some dev out there didn’t have to implement Windows support.
WSL is actually worse than people think it is , I tried doing android via using wsl and wanted to run emulator , the amount of work you have to put and still the result you get is sub norminal. And this was in my job which made the matter even worse because my boss thought I was slacking .
Me looking disgusted at myself in the mirror, for I am doomed towards eternal Microsoft-dependency at work.
Still better than cygwin
And msys
God I remember suffering through cygwin at a VB shop back in '17… literal hell
I still don’t know what WSL is for.
Serious answer,
Windows subsystem for Linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a component of Microsoft Windows that allows the use of a GNU/Linux environment from within Windows, foregoing the overhead of a virtual machine and being an alternative to dual booting.
Them tryna suck us back into their dysfunctional os, not gonna work on me Mr Micro
Oddly enoigh, they recognize this and are patching the hundreds of tiny holes. I would argue they began trying (IMO malformed) fixes back since the launch of windows 8 and .NET. It’s backwards compatability means tiptoing around some pretty huge tech dept. (Windows was DOS and had no security model at one point) Each time they try to pull people off of their older SDKs. If and when they dont stick, the pile of stuff to support grows one more.
(Also WTH where they thinking with windows 8 apps!? The oversimplicity of the UI leading to huge patches of unused screen space, the art design or lack thereof, the janky unpolished UI elements. It’s embarrising for how much pride they had for it.)
I do know what it is, I just don’t know why you’d use it instead of proper linux, or a vm.
Bad management
My company only allows us to use the company-provided Windows image, so I do all my work inside a WSL2 tmux session.
JetBrains IDEs and VSCode also have WSL connectors so it works acceptably well.
It also handily dodges all the Windows security policies (like installing software). You can even run Xorg apps from it.
I’m still forced to use MS Teams and Outlook, though…
Good answer. Like a michelin chef working at McDonald’s and having a little secret area of his own.
yup!
I only use Windows because I have to work with a corporation’s IT helpdesk staff to get on their VPN if I want to do contract work for them. They are not likely to help me get connected from Linux; they’ll just find another contract dev. Once in, I do everything in Linux because my code will ultimately run in a Linux cloud container of some sort. WSL works well enough for me to do this. I’d rather have Linux on bare metal, but whatever. I’m in; I’m coding; I’m getting paid. I’ll put up with a little bit of suck.
I don’t know what WSL is.
its for when the reqs include azure ad and the whole office has a m$ fetish yet you still gotta get your bag without losing your decades-built toolset AND you have a choice at all
That sounds like hell.
edus and with the heavy m$ edu discounts attract and hold
I love having it at work, so I can write and run bash scripts on my Windows work PC.
I have dozens if Linux servers available to me but sometimes it just is easier to run a script locally.
I too do that, working from a windows vm and writing code for linux - but I push it to a linux vm for testing. Never occurred to me to use WSL and have another environment to configure and maintain for dev that’s different to the target one.
But fair play if that suits you! Each to their own, and I’m sure I do things that make no sense to others.
Anecdote: I have an IDE that only works on Windows that can build applications for Linux. I use MinGW as part of the packaging process (AND I FUCKING HATE IT OH MY GOD. All of the pathing is broken!). As of yesterday I learned that WSL is a thing that might replace MinGW and make some processes of packaging for linux targets a little easier.
I’ve used both. What I can tell you is that moving to WSL is like moving to Linux wholesale. Treat it like porting your toolchain.
IIRC, MinGW tools will happily take windows style paths (e.g. “C:\Users~myuser\projects”). If your tooling/scripting depends on being able to use Windows style paths, you’ll have to fix that first or you’re going to have a really bad time. There may be other small differences between MinGW tools and what ships on Ubuntu (or whatever Linux you decide to use in the WSL).
Windows Stolen Linux
To keep developers on the platform, because their own ecosystem is shit.
Honestly if it frees me from MinGW I would be happy
I’m happy the Cygwin and Mingw days are over. WSL2 works very well.
Run Linux stuff on Windows.
A big use case is development with Docker containers.
Thanks - I can kind of see that, as docker on windows is majorly broken. I think I’d just run it in a linux vm, as I do with most of my developing, but I can see some might not want that overhead.
Consider dropping Windows instead
That’s the best bit about WSL (at least, version 2) is that it is a VM running a full version of Linux using Microsoft Hypervisor. There’s a bunch of drivers included that allow Windows and Linux to share filesystems and if you run Wayland/X apps in Linux they run on the Windows desktop.
Sharing filesystems could be useful, I can see that.
I do that with target dev platforms anyway, using things like NFS, samba and sftp, but I do see that it could work well for this.
WSL these days is basically linux running on hyper-v tech natively in Windows.
WSL is just a chroot running under Windows.
Most WSL users I know all run Linux at home; WSL is the best they can get at work.
True
