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SuSE Operating Systems Windows

Windows 10 Gets A New Linux: openSUSE (fossbytes.com) 189

Posted by EditorDavid from the Windows-distros dept.
An anonymous reader writes: "Running Linux binaries natively on Windows... that sounds awesome indeed," writes Hannes Kuhnemund, the senior product manager for SUSE Linux Enterprise. He's written a blog post describing how to run openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 on Windows 10, according to Fossbytes, which reports that currently users have two options -- openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2. Currently it's Ubuntu that's enabled by default in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, although there's already a project on GitHub that also lets you install Arch Linux. "It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)," writes Kuhnemund, "and it is time to change it to the real stuff.
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Windows 10 Gets A New Linux: openSUSE More

Windows 10 Gets A New Linux: openSUSE

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  • Submitter Troll detected (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)," writes Kuhnemund, "and it is time to change it to the real stuff."

  • No (Score:3)

    by cyber-vandal ( 148830 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @08:42AM (#53675703) Homepage

    Running Windows binaries on Linux would be far more useful but very little effort seems to be devoted to that from the major Linux players.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Give us the source code to make it work, then.

  • Shudder. (Score:3)

    by fisted ( 2295862 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @08:42AM (#53675709)

    Running Linux binaries natively on Windows... that sounds awesome indeed

    Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

    • Presumably it gives the NSA the same access to Linux activity that Windows 10 already does?

    • Re:Shudder. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @09:31AM (#53675855) Homepage

      Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

      Not sure what MS' motivation is, but it's good news for a lot of scientific software developers. Small teams or single researchers rarely have enough time to even keep the main development going, never mind keeping up with multiple OS targets. With this everybody can simply focus on Linux, and tell Windows users to just run it under the Linux layer and stop asking about a native port.

    • Sounds horrible to me. Why bother?

      For the same reason that GIMP is no substitute for Photoshop. Sometimes the other platform has a natively far better product. To put it simply: You're running Windows due to some other limitation and you need to crank out a script, do you do it in the abortion that is batch files? Or would you rather bash out some bash?

  • Why is that useful? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cjonslashdot ( 904508 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @08:57AM (#53675755)
    Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organizations, and I always wonder, Why, if they are deploying on RHEL, are their developers writing code on Windows laptops? The problems that result are endless. And the solution is simple: either (1) run real Linux in an VM; or (2) run Linux natively. #1 will satisfy enterprise access to email, etc. The solutions are already here. Trying to cram Linux into the Windows kernel seems bizarre to me. What do others think?

    • Re:Why is that useful? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @09:09AM (#53675791) Homepage

      Embrace.

      Extend.

      Extinguish,

      They're hoping that "linux" comes to mean just a particular set of utilities, no matter the OS.

      In this day and age, virtualise. And it doesn't matter what OS you host virtual machines on, so long as they run.

      Which is a death-knell to Windows, because the choice between "server core" and a barebones Linux install with a hypervisor? What's to choose except price and licensing?

      Developers should be able to code on - literally - anything they want to. It helps in testing, if nothing else, if they are checking in code that is Windows-only and everyone complains that it breaks builds.

      But they should all have all the target platforms as VMs, too. Then it's a matter of personal preference.

      To be honest, I don't get why so many coders actually use MacBooks. It seems completely the wrong decision to me, if given free choice.

      But the days of which OS is actually running on the hardware mattering are long gone. The choice of what you use as desktop is personal preference. The choice of what to use for backend services doesn't matter so long as you have people managing it.

      Windows, at this point, is just a fancy GUI, not unlike which choice of DE you use on Linux. I think Microsoft are trying to claw that back a little and make you think that you can get rid of the Linux desktops and interfaces by using Windows.

      • Indeed. One thought: it is nice if your native OS can run containers natively. Regarding Macbooks, everyone has their own reasons, but my personal reason is hardware quality: the hard aluminum case, the keys, the slimness. There are downsides of course - can't easily replace the battery, lack of ports on new ones. It is a tradeoff. I carry mine everywhere, so physical durability and lightness are important to me. But using OSX/MacOS means that to run true Linux containers, I have to run a VM. In practice, I
      • People have been running dual boot or Wine since Linux came out. Putting conspiracy theories aside, maybe Microsoft did this because it answers a lot of use cases for a number of users?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ledow ( 319597 )

          Dual boot requires rebooting.

          Nobody in commerce or enterprise is doing that with any kind of regularity, on clients or servers.

          Virtualised hardware, however, let's them run everything without changing the machine. It also lets Linux be the underlying OS while Windows is just a VM.

          That gives them an incentive for "one OS" top-to-bottom (e.g. Server licensing for HyperV) that can run Windows and Linux commands (even the hypervisor itself) without having to install a rival OS.

      • What has been "extinguished" lately that wasn't a) a failed experiment or, b) a product that no longer had a purpose?

      • Embrace,

        Extend,

        I didn't read further, for two reasons. a) The senior management of Microsoft is not the same as it once was. You're talking about ruthless strategists, who have set plans in their mind to kill off competitors. Nadella by comparison struggles to tie his shoe laces and would happily just sell the entire thing to the highest bidder and move on to destroy another company.

        b) The return key is not a substitute for a full stop.

        You comment was impossible to read.

        Don't do that.

      • You're on to something here... getting developers with a Linux mindset enticed by Linux on Windowscould aide in migration of scientific development and server maintenance toward the Windows way of doing things. Alternatively, it could make those Windows developers move to Linux and then code porting could be minimal, lowering the barrier for Linux ports of things, such as games.

        Makes me wonder if MS is slowly giving up on Windows and providing a transition to a Linux-based system. Maybe in a few years we

    • Re:Why is that useful? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @09:15AM (#53675811)

      You said it yourself -- "large organizations".

      They're aiming for some kind of economies of scale in purchasing, application deployment and security that go way beyond the single-digit percentage of user base that developers represent.

      They could just hand over the hardware and let the developers run their own machines, but this has all kinds of security implications and often bleed developer productivity in desktop maintenance overhead.

      Running dev machines natively in Linux makes some sense, but may cut them off from other Windows-only applications they need to be part of the larger organization. as well as lack of visibility in enterprise management software. Running it in a VM has the same problems plus the added complexity of two environments.

      I doubt Microsoft's solution is designed principally as a developer solution, either, but probably a long-term gambit to make it a more universal platform to retain users when the year of Linux on the Desktop rolls around. They must see some future in their crystal ball where enough Linux desktops exist that *not* being able to run some application is an existential risk to Windows.

    • Re: Why is that useful? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For one, Windows doesn't have systemd.

    • Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organization ?

      We fired our agile transformation coach. What a goddamn bureaucrat.

      • Sorry you had that experience. In the organization I am working with, I have spearheaded the introduction of ATDD and the use of docker containers on laptops. To do that, I had to have lots of conversations with various stakeholders in the bureaucracy, to explain why we were doing things differently. IMO, a good Agile transformation coach needs to (1) know the technology, and (2) be able to explain it to managers who don't know it.

    • Developers should use whatever platform they are most comfortable with.

      Where I work, all of our code is designed to run on Linux, but all the developers ran Windows. Things were messy, because everyone created a tool chain around Windows (VMs with mounted shares, dev tools run locally on Windows, etc.), which did not work in production. When I came in and moved the toolchain to Linux, the integration became much nicer, because I could target Linux, but hand those tools off to the Windows users expecting min

      • Yes, and there is also the issue that if a test fails in a downstream production-like env, it is nice if the developers are familiar with that env so that they can diagnose the problem. If they work in Windows and the downstream test failure is in a Linux env, then the devs need to be comfortable in both Win and Linux. Did you have experiences with that situation?

    • Re:Why is that useful? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @11:32AM (#53676391)

      Exactly what I'd expect said from an Agile transformation coach; fixation on the process instead of the result.

      • I think you are jumping to conclusions about me. This is not about me.

        You are right that it is not just about process. Process is part of it. The largest issue, IME, is knowledge: do people know about VMs? Containers? ATDD? DevOps? etc. - at all levels, from the developers through the various managers who set the rules (and therefore can change the rules).

        One thing that I have found is that if you give developers Windows machines, they learn that - they don't learn about Linux. That's fine if the org deploy

    • Why run Windows in the first place? I am an Agile transformation coach, and I work in large organizations, and I always wonder, Why, if they are deploying on RHEL, are their developers writing code on Windows laptops?

      I have no admiration for M$ and I have used Linux in some form or other for more than fifteen years. I admit Windows 7 is a decent OS, may be the best after Win 2000.

      Linux is still not a viable substitute to Windows when it comes to Desktop. I don't know how good/bad the IDEs used for enterprise SW development are on Linux. Coding is not the *only* activity a developer does and as an Agile coach you would know the *endless stream of meetings*...do we have a substitute for MS Outlook? IMHO Agile ideas may

      • I don't claim to know the best solution for this. I was merely sharing my own experiences. Have you used the Outlook Web client? It is pretty effective, IME. I have used it quite a bit, but I am sure there are shortcomings that I have not come across. I also wonder (I don't know) if MS apps like Word can now be deployed in a private cloud. If so, perhaps that could be a solution.

  • Arrogance (Score:3)

    by geeper ( 883542 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @09:16AM (#53675815)

    It's quite unfortunate that Microsoft enabled the wrong Linux (that's my personal opinion) by default within the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL),

    Coming from someone who must use windows at work, it's fortunate that they (MS) are doing this at all. This arrogance and public disagreement within the community is uncalled for.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • All managed by a python script to download, install & switch whenever you want. https://github.com/RoliSoft/WSL-Distribution-Switcher [github.com]
  • Somehow I doubt Microsoft will make one of those any time soon.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hemanman ( 35302 )

      Please, don't wine about that...

      -H

  • Said before, but bears repeating (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @10:37AM (#53676089)

    Linux on Windows is part of Microsoft's 3-E strategy. If they can stunt the growth of Linux as an OS by co-opting Linux applications to run on Windows, they may eventually succeed in cutting the heart out of FOSS altogether. And they would LOVE to do that, because FOSS is one of the few significant forces standing between them and the conversion of the whole world to a software-as-a-service model, wherein the average user doesn't own shit and has fuck-all in the way of rights, choice, or legal recourse.

    Anybody who has a choice shouldn't run Windows, and certainly shouldn't run Linux applications on Windows. And anybody who MUST run Windows, should also run Linux, and use Windows ONLY for those things that absolutely require it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Said before, but no longer true-- This isn't eee (that's old news), this is "dear God-- We have to support linux containers or we're screwed".

      And of course, docker containers are a fantastic way to extend the whole software-as-a-service thing. The cloud may be open source, but you don't own it, and you can't control it.

      Have a nice doomsday.

    • Linux on Windows is part of Microsoft's 3-E strategy.

      Microsoft, you: only one of these is still hung up on that 20-year-old phrase.

  • The more things change, the more they remain the same.

  • I keep forgetting SUSE still exists.

    Does anybody still use it, and how does it stack up against the other distro's?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I keep forgetting SUSE still exists.

      Does anybody still use it, and how does it stack up against the other distro's?

      According to DistroWatch [distrowatch.com], OpenSUSE is the 4th most popular Linux distribution. (Ubuntu is the 3rd most popular.)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cas2000 ( 148703 )

      you're lucky. i wish I could forget. it's been years, and i still have terrible flashbacks.

  • Why would you want to keep the truck around when you can jusr drive the Ferrari?

  • Suse origins (Score:3)

    by SeriousTube ( 2575581 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @11:11AM (#53676269)
    The article says "Well, SUSE knows what they are doing because they have been in the Linux business since 1992. Try to find a Linux “vendor” (or in that sense, distributor) which is older. You won’t. There aren’t any." This is deceptive. SLS was the first linux distribution in 1992. Slackware was developed from that and released in 1993. The first SUSE distribution was a German translation of Slackware. Stating the obvious, Slackware is still around and is older. Then in 1996 Suse made their own distribution based on Jurix.
    • Suse is as much in Linux business as Nokia is in smartphone business. If they did not go belly up yet they will soon. For now they will stay afloat as MS proxy, until MS no longer needs them.

    • Well, Slackware isn't a vendor, it is a hobby project by a handful of people. So in this sense, SuSE is, indeed, the oldest Linux vendor.

      • Re:Suse origins (Score:4, Informative)

        by RDW ( 41497 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @02:46PM (#53677511)

        Slackware does sell its distribution on DVD/CD, which I think makes its a 'vendor'. SUSE may have been 'in the Linux business' since 1992, but only as a service provider and third party re-distributor of existing distributions (SLS and Slackware). They didn't actually sell a distribution under their own branding until 1994, and that was really just Slackware translated into German. So Hannes Kuehnemund is being a bit cheeky here!

  • MS-Linux is guaranteed to be broken (Score:3)

    by Shompol ( 1690084 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @12:37PM (#53676729)
    And by "broken" I mean not compatible to itself, and MS will insist that theirs is the correct one and the original should be fed to the dogs. This is the sad story of every "open" product support by MS:
    1. MS-Java was taken to court by Sun for not being compartible to Java. MS had to rename it to .Net
    2. MS implementation of open document standard is never 100% compatible with open document readers.
    3. IE is not HTML compatible to this day. I don't do web development but based on my research they struggle with IE peculiarities big time
    4. MS Linux is guaranteed to break everything Linux, not just because of lack of diligence but due to MS custom APIs, enhancements and "improvements". We are only safe until MS distro becomes the leading one.

  • GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel (Score:3)

    by BlackPignouf ( 1017012 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @01:41PM (#53677091)

    If I understand it right, it's a GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel on top of a compatibility layer on Windows, right?

    What should it be called? It's not exactly Linux, and we don't say that WINE is a Windows on Linux. It's also not only GNU.

    • Yup, GNU/NT-Kernel (Score:5, Interesting)

      by DrYak ( 748999 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @02:50PM (#53677545) Homepage

      If I understand it right, it's a GNU/Linux distro without a Linux kernel on top of a compatibility layer on Windows, right?

      Yup, mostly(*).

      So "GNU/Windows NT Kernel" is better than "Linux" - That actually one of the rare few occastion a typical "GNU/Linux" distro gets used without the Linux kernel part.

      But because "Linux" has brand recognition, it's still used.

      ---

      (*): there's no separate compatibility layer (unlike things like Cygwin which are a user-mode compatibility layer that translates POSIX API-calls into Win32 calls - and thus enables soure compatibility).
      The NT-Kernel has a bizare peculiarity : it can export several different ABI's to usermode software - it has different "personnalities".
      - Win32 is just *one* of the set of ABI available.
      - A long time ago, that made it possible to run OS/2 software on Windows NT.
      - A little bit less longer time ago, Windows NT also had a "Unix" personality.
      - Now WSL is actually the NT kernel exhibiting a small subset of the ABI featured by the linux kernel - about the bare minimum to get a few basic user-mode software (e,.g.: the "GNU" part of "GNU/Linux") run unmodified.

      These are straight ABI available from the NT-Kernel, not a mere Linux-to-Win32 API conversion like Cygwin.

      e.g.:
      - Among other defaults Win32 has a poor multi-processing (forking is expensive). Cygwin application have to rely on that poorer cousin in order to provide multi-processing to POSIX.
      - The recent kernels of Windows NT intoduced pico-thread which are very cheap, weren't available in the Win32 API back when introduced, but where exposed through the "Linux-lite" API that is WSL in order to make a usefull multiprocessing.

      On the other hand WSL is far from complete. There is tons of stuff that you can do on your GNU/Linux that you can't do with WSL (e.g.: filesystem drivers)

  • Wait, what? (Score:3)

    by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ) on Monday January 16, 2017 @01:44PM (#53677107) Journal

    Getting Linux to run under Windows is like paying a call girl to hold the Fleshlight for you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )

      Getting Linux to run under Windows is like paying a call girl to hold the Fleshlight for you.

      Perhaps, but it combines an attractive user interface with picking up fewer viruses...

  • I'd imagine having a bunch of different distros embracing this Bash for Ubuntu Linux subsystem for Windows will lead to a lot of the bugs being ironed out.

    Embrace, extend, extinguish. At least the New Microsoft (TM) is giving us what we want, though.

  • Clearly this move is to insure Microsoft is able to data mine you/serve ads as you use Linux/Linux programs natively they don't want people dual booting, Cant data mine that way without breaking laws. that is all IMO

  • He's written a blog post describing how to run openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 on Windows 10, according to Fossbytes, which
    reports that currently users have two options -- openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2.

    So you can run openSUSE Leap 42.2 or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2? But how do you choose which of openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2 to run?

    openSUSE Leap 42.2 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 SP2

  • I can't wait to see this error:

    rm: The action can't be completed because the file is open in another program. Close the file and try again.

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