POSIX (Linux?) returns to Windows 10 (NT!)

Finally!

Yes, I know about cygwin, but why run on top of Win32, when it can be a kernel subsystem?  I don’t know why they scalled back, and killed SUA/SFU when it was viable, but I guess it being more Linux compatible makes it more friendly for users.

Plus it’s 64bit! yay!

13 thoughts on “POSIX (Linux?) returns to Windows 10 (NT!)

  1. coLinux (Linux kernel compiled to run on top of Windows) was nice but never got updated to 64-bit, and wasn’t as well integrated as this sounds – it was more like a VM, using disk images rather than sharing the same filesystem.

    • This is nothing like coLinux though, that carved out it’s own memory space, this is more like POSIX, and the Internetix subsysems from before.

      • Except that you don’t need to craft your own special PE COFFs with Subsystem-Posix bit header set on. This will run natively ELFs compiled with your latest GCC/Clang flavor.

        Is said technology powering this Linux subsystem can be used later also to bring true Win32 app support to Windows Phone devices with Continuum technology enabled. Good innovation old times are coming again by MS.

        • Well you didn’t have to ‘craft’ MS-DOS exe’s to run on NTVDM, nor did you have to ‘craft’ OS/2 executables to run on the OS2SS … It was really always up to MS. They easily could have supported Xenix COFF exe’s if they wanted, or Solaris x86 ELF. At the time I think the fear was that if NT did such a good job of running UNIX based stuff, it’d be just another UNIX, instead of a Windows server based OS.

          The western world of business does love it’s SLA’s and support agreements (even if they actually offer zero support…) so this actually a big win for FOSS, and more so a loss for the Linux kernel.

  2. I think MS just wants to capture some of the open source NoSQL database business. While those can be recompiled for Windows, some releases expect Linux utilities to be readily called. Implementing limited command line Ubuntu should be easier than getting developers to switch to equivalent Windows utilities.

    • Kind of? It’s back to the old days with the promise of the microkernel with multiple personalities. Now they are making a “Linux” personality that can run an unmodified Ubuntu(Debian) userland. It’s a good win any way you slice it.

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