Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

“I like WSL for when I'm working in Windows and need to run some quick bash and handle the output in Windows file explorer.”

“A single source checkout I can work on from both sides; no inconsistency of forgetting that I need to apply changes twice.”

“WSL is getting better, even with minor releases. It's the only reason I didn't switch my most recent corporate provided laptop.”

“You still end up in uncanny valley often enough, with commands that are missing, or working unexpectedly differently”

“WSL allowed me to choose any laptop I want and run the subset of Linux that matters for me.”

“WSL has been god send for corporate employees who get a windows laptop but need to do real work”

“everything I use it for executes virtually instantly, 60% slower than virtually instantly is still virtually instantly”

“Luckily we still got the first version of WSL because of that project's partnership with that linux team.”

“WSL could have been avoided if Microsoft had been more serious about the POSIX subsystem in Windows NT”

“I set up mine with WSL and used a Linux terminal over xserver. Once you have a decent unix shell (and a good terminal) it's fine.”

“The original WSL proves that you actually don't need to be perfect or to have the entire ABI to be pretty useful.”

“Anything with node_modules takes ages on my Windows machine, whether it is through WSL, Docker or direct”

“WSL is an underrated component in enterprises, and quite often the only way you can get close to Linux.”

“WSL file speeds, especially when running npm install, were the impetus that ultimately got me to switch off of Windows.”

“performance issues make it impossible to do many things across the FS boundary in practice”

“Microsoft took the right decision to offer GNU/Linux right from the start instead of yet another POSIX attempt”

“WSL on windows is a lot more friendly than anything Apple has done in the last decade to assist in Linux support”

“the shared filesystem is incredibly slow, there is no hardware passthrough support out of the box”

“Windows + WSL for anything you want to develop on Linux seems to me like one of the best solutions.”

“Having a full Windows desktop with a Linux install saves me from formatting and partitioning”

“you would never have to go through the process of migrating to an entirely new OS and still get all of the benefits”

“I've been met with friction and weird quirks in the interaction between them every time I have tried to use it myself”

“I find WSL to be very useful. Much better than my previous method of dual booting Linux and Windows.”

“it has some annoying quirks with how their Wayland implementation behaves with DWM, but otherwise it's just a Linux environment”

“Mostly its related to filesystem and permissions. Interface between windows and Linux, and mismatch in how the two work.”

“Microsoft had to warn users that they would corrupt the original WSL subsystem if they touched Linux files using Windows tools”

“Then you get flaky file watchers, odd perms, and a dev setup that feels like a workaround piled on top of another workaround.”

“Which is why WSL and Virtualiztion Framework have become the best way to have the Year of Desktop Linux”

“So are Cygwin and WSL, though, for those who don't already have the luxury of being on Linux or UNIX”

“I switched from developing in Linux VMs to WSL about 3 years ago and have used it daily for development.”

“modern WSL2 seems totally fine to me. It is the key ingredient that allows me to have one workstation that can do”

“No matter what you do, there will always be some weird platform detection or line termination that pops up somewhere.”

“WSL is fantastic - apart from the fact that you need to clear it intermittently via disk compression”

“WSL is the best way to avoid all the Windows slowness as far as the VFS and the forking overhead.”

“many software developers couldn't or wouldn't use WSL because of the slow file operations”

“When WSL/WSL2 was released and there was a big open source push I actually thought they were righting the ship”

“GPU acceleration, let alone partitioning, isn't really a thing for Windows guests which is something that works out of the box on WSL”

“WSL and Windows Terminal has done a fantastic job at delaying my move to Linux as my primary desktop”

“You can't run a proper VM there though, something like a normal distro with systemd, KDE Wayland session and etc.”

“I can access Linux files and edit them with Windows while running local servers on different ports”