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Operating Systems Ubuntu Windows Linux

Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10 (omgubuntu.co.uk) 127

The latest Windows 10 Insider preview -- build 14936 -- features Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. When a user enables the 'Bash on Ubuntu on Windows' feature for the first time, OMGUbuntu reports, Windows 10 now installs an Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) image instead of Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr). From the report: The updated version of Ubuntu in the WSL only affects new instances, i.e., those created by running lxrun.exe /install or on the very first run of the bash.exe setup. It is possible to upgrade WSL instances from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04 manually by running the do-release-upgrade command. Other changes in the WSL in Build 14936 include support for chroot system call, epoll support for /dev/null and the ability for bash -c to redirect to a file.
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Ubuntu 16.04 Available in Latest Insider Update To Windows 10

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  • The horse can ride man ! .
  • Ubuntu in Windows 10.... ugh
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Don't want.

  • by jedidiah ( 1196 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @02:36PM (#53006197) Homepage

    I think this is the "embrace" stage...

  • by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @02:38PM (#53006205) Journal
    This now makes me wonder what reason there could be to run Ubuntu on Windows instead of Windows on Linux. For the few pieces of software like CAD (or games) I can understand, but then I can't think of a use for those professionals to use Linux in a virtual machine.

    So, what scenario would fit best to use Linux on Windows instead of Windows on Linux for the professional? (I myself use Proxmox as a desktop with severeal machines for testing on it)
    • Plenty of corporate Windows-only shops that this at least gives another option to.

      • But what would those options be for? If it's a Windows shop, what use would they have for running Linux that they couldn't do on Windows?
        • by SirSlud ( 67381 )

          Using bash shell and GNU for tools/scripts/etc is nice. Frankly, if you think Ubuntu on Windows is "running Linux" I don't think you quite get what it is at all.

        • by RDW ( 41497 )

          There are any number of Unix/Linux applications that have never been ported to Windows by their developers and have no direct equivalent in the MS world. If most of your work is in Windows, it makes obvious sense to run that as your main OS, but having the ability to use additional Unix/Linux packages fills a real need. I've been doing this by varous means since the 90s, using Cygwin, VMs, and now this thing. It may possible to (e.g.) use Windows-native GNU tools (MinGW, etc.) to build the software you need

        • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          After Windows anal probe 10, M$ has the whole marketing stank thing going, it can't sell anything any more. Hence weird moves like this that serve no real purpose except marketing. So trying to associate with Ubuntu to recover some cool and loose a little bit of that stink. I don't think anyone is buying it though but they will still try. Expect of series of other similar PR=B$ stunts to try to improve their disgusting perve image, at least more government are starting to act against M$ and criminal prying

        • I could see testing PHP, Perl, or Python scripts in such an environment. Think web development and things like that. There are probably a lot of use cases like that.

    • *several
      Proofread too quick. Need edit option.
    • Out-of-Touch IT (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As an engineer, many places I have worked have IT departments which are run for the benefit of non-techies and completely out-of-touch with engineering. These companies simply do not understand the engineers' desires whatsoever. Windows is forced upon the engineers (80% of the white collar workforce) because it's simpler to maintain a single OS, and the remaining 20% wants windows. I am not saying that every engineer agrees with me. However, only one side of the debate is heard at most companies: those who

      • Re:Out-of-Touch IT (Score:4, Interesting)

        by perpenso ( 1613749 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @06:03PM (#53007405)
        My Windows boxes at home and work have dual booted since the mid 90s. Even at companies whose software products targeted Windows only. Occasionally a task was better performed under *nix. I also try to separate UI and core code in projects and build/test the core code under both Windows and Linux. Crossplatform builds/testing is a nice way to find some bugs, some bugs are difficult to manifest in one environment and turn out to manifest easily in the other.

        Although to be honest the cross platform stuff worked best when I had a Mac around and could also target a completely different architecture, 68K or PPC CPUs back in the day. Admittedly it was easier to get an extra hard drive for Linux than a Mac. Fortunately at some of these jobs we also had Mac products.
    • Because this isn't an emulation layer - just a different kernel. It's native binaries and no virtualization. You just can't do the reverse on Linux.

      • Windows doesn't have stable "real" syscalls -- you're supposed to use a shared lib interface that is rock stable (ABI-compatible down to 3.11+win32s, mostly API-compatible all the way back to Windows 1). The real syscalls are undocumented and change in incompatible ways even between minor updates of the OS.

        Thus, win32/win64 on NT is no more or less "native" than Wine.

        On the other hand, WSL implements compatibility at syscall [github.com] level.

        • Thus, win32/win64 on NT is no more or less "native" than Wine.

          That would be an important point if everything actually ran on WINE. There are a LOT of useful Linux utilities than run just fine from a CLI, but very few for Windows. GUI incompatibility is the big one for WINE, and there are plenty of stable X servers available for Windows and a well-documented protocol.

          • Wine vs NT is same as Win98 vs NT -- all three are implementations of the win32 API, with different subtle incompatibilities. Do you remember the trouble when moving from 98 to XP? Wine is about on par with that. The 98->XP transition was done mostly by efforts of application programmers, trying to achieve full bug-to-bug compatibility in the implementation itself is a titanic work.

            • That's beside the point of my argument. Linux on Windows is more stable than Windows on Linux, because there's no GUI component involved in the translation layer.

        • by jcdr ( 178250 )

          For that reason I always wanted that the win32/win64 API will be a international standard managed by an official organization like ISO. That way Microsoft will lost evil control of an API that is actually a very effective tool to kick off any concurrent. This will allow Wine to implement a good implementation based on detailed documentation.

          This is curious that no government on the planet require that win32/win64 are international standard, while there usually require standard certification on a tone of les

        • What about porting ReactOS to a linux kernel in userland? There is some success there in that platform and be a better solution than wine

      • by jcdr ( 178250 )

        It's doable, the Wine project prove that point. It's just way more complicated...
        In addition to what "KiloByte" have said, Microsoft have the Linux source code as implementation reference to look at, while the Wine project didn't have a chance to look at the Microsoft kernel and libraries.

        • ReactOS seems a btter implementation but is immature kernel wise.

          Perhaps using reactOS on a linux kernel in userland an idea?

          • Wouldn't that just be WINE [wikipedia.org]?

            The main difference between the two is the attempt at a kernel that mimics Windows' kernel more directly. Otherwise, they share quite a bit of code.

    • This now makes me wonder what reason there could be to run Ubuntu on Windows instead of Windows on Linux.

      How about because Ubuntu on Window works, while "Windows" (which isn't really Windows) on Linux can be kind of a crap-shoot. A very crappy crap shoot.

    • Why linux on Windows? ...

      You want to develop on Visual Studio because it's an awesome dev environment, but bash is a much better solution for build/config scripts.

    • It isn't Linux and it isn't a virtual machine.

    • I have disabled TCP/IP 4 and 6, and Client for Microsoft Networking (or whatever it's called) for my wireless adaptor. All Windows does as host is establish a wifi connection. Then a Linux client requests an IP address over the bridged virtual network card, and from there I do all my surfing. The only drawback is that accelerated graphics don't work too well from inside the virtual machine. Otherwise, I never have to worry about the Windows host needing security updates, getting spyware, etc. because it's
  • Don't worry, that build is not available anyway. Since 14915, all Windows 10 Insider Preview does is downloading updates over and over, rebooting for several hours long installation that requires you to log in in the middle then rolls back the update for another several hours. Judging by the Feedback Hub, same happens to many or possibly most people on insider builds. And working versions are expired since Oct 1st.

    I for one don't let Windows anywhere outside a VM but those who made the mistake of using W

  • They're making all of this GPL code available on a commercial basis. I believe that this makes them responsible for making a source repository available. (been a while since I (re) read the pertinent sections of the GPL.
    • by Megol ( 3135005 )

      Not even if they were distributing GPL software would they need to do that (they would need to provide some kind of access to sources though) however they don't so...

    • Where is Microsoft's source repository? They're making all of this GPL code available on a commercial basis. I believe that this makes them responsible for making a source repository available. (been a while since I (re) read the pertinent sections of the GPL.

      They don't need one. They are not modifying these tools so you can go to Ubuntu's repository. If you asked MS for the source they could fulfill their GPL obligation by referring you to Ubuntu's.

      Note that they do not use the Linux kernel. They have alternative code for providing the necessary Linux APIs for the tools.

  • by evolutionary ( 933064 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @03:48PM (#53006703)
    Gee, doesn't it make MORE sense to run Windows in Linux (VirtualBox, Proxmox, KVM). Safer, easier to audit network activity. It's amazing how people don't seem to see the light, even when the potion is on the table in front of them saying "drink me" AND they know people who have already tasted the potion and haven't died, or gotten sick.
    • by _merlin ( 160982 )

      It's not even easy to audit network activity on Linux once you get stuff like TCP offload engines involved. You pretty much need to use instrumented switches if you want to be sure of everything going in or out of your NICs.

    • Yes but then MS does not get to snoop on you while you do Linux stuff.

      • While nothing is foolproof, that is the general idea. Anyone who is a doctor, lawyer or handles confidential data should not be using MS Windows while viewing/interacting with that data. Cellphone too, Cyanogen is what I use for cell phone use (and I cover my camera :D) PrivatOS may have possibilities too. (Yes Blackberry was giving data to the NSA for a couple years, but I believe that was directly from Blackberry, not leaked from the OS directly. Time will tell.) Android and iOS I suspect are preinfecte
  • The question is especially interesting in the long term.
    Will this be just a limited trick to please the developers that like usual console tools on Ubuntu. ?
    Or will this be someday included by default on Windows with enough support to allow to run Linux applications ?

  • Docker (Score:4, Interesting)

    by batkiwi ( 137781 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @05:20PM (#53007161)

    A re-paste of a comment I posted as a reply:

    My belief is that the 99% use case of this is for running docker images.

    Before this you could run docker on windows, but you had to create a "bizarre" tiny linux distro VM (100mb or so storage), and the docker on windows launcher would leverage that to provision and run the docker images. You had to dedicate ram to that VM to run your docker pool.

    With this you can run docker images "natively", without a separate VM memory space, and due to the elf loader support they actually are running on windows itself.

    I do not see this as a good alternative to traditional VMs.

    • windows server 2016 comes with container support built in, and guess what cloud platform it uses? Docker.

  • ... Systemd Edition?

  • Can anyone tell me if this will allow NFS mounts? I really hate samba + windows and Unix services is only available for enterprise versions.
    • No, this won't work.

      cat /proc/filesystems
      nodev sysfs
      nodev rootfs
      nodev bdev
      nodev proc
      nodev tmpfs
      nodev binfmt_misc
      nodev debugfs
      nodev sockfs
      nodev usbfs
      nodev pipefs
      nodev anon_inodefs
      nodev devpts
      ext3
      ext2
      ext4
      nodev ramfs
      nodev hugetlbfs
      vfat
      msdos
      iso9660
      fuseblk
      nodev fuse
      nodev fusectl
      yaffs
      yaffs2
      nodev mqueue

  • No systemd (Score:4, Funny)

    by The-Forge ( 84105 ) on Monday October 03, 2016 @07:51PM (#53007997)

    I'd figure everyone would be jumping for joy because there's no systemd in this.

    • Well, all seven of the systemd obsessives may be excited -- but not really, because without systemd they have nothing to whine about. I mean, look at the windswept empty desert that is Devuan -- if people actually wanted a system without systemd they'd all be telling us about the exciting new developments in Devuan, rather than banging on about systemd in every thread that slightly touches on RedHat, Debian or Ubuntu.

  • Could something like ReactOS be ported on a Linux kernel in userland to run win32 software?

  • On a 2GB RAM / 32 GB storage cheap Windows laptop, I have found that Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) works fine and I would prefer it to full emulation given the limited amount of RAM available. For 150GBP, I have got a 1kg "disposable" notebook with a small form factor, decent keyboard and 10hrs battery life. I used to have a chromebook for that purpose, but I had to flash its firmware and hardware support wasn't perfect.

    As a C++ development environment, you get the usual console tools (vim, git, cmake

  • So does ping even work now? This is why I went back to Windows 7 after a drive failure.

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