# WSL1 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 1)

7 Hacker News commenters recommended WSL1 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 1) and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend WSL1 for Linux tasks where it beats WSL2 and handles most syscalls without hacks. Critics say it was slow on I/O and Microsoft dropped it.

## Why people recommend it

- Better than WSL2 for some tasks (2 comments): "WSL1 can do that, WSL2 can be kicked into working somewhat" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46111203)) "WSL1 is generally better for these usecases." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377838))
- Supports most Linux syscalls (2 comments): "it could cleanly support most of the Linux syscalls without needing any hacks" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46374929)) "WSL1 proves that it mostly can" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48375031))

## What people warn about

- Slow, unusable for I/O-heavy work (2 comments): "adding “picoprocesses” to the kernel so that WSL1 would perform acceptably and still wasn’t enough" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46915832)) "It was soooo slow though. Practically unusable for anything i/o heavy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48472222))
- Dropped by Microsoft (1 comments): "wsl1 almost replaced it, but obviously they scrapped it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48472696))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Wine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wine.md): 329 recommend
- [Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows-subsystem-for-linux.md): 159 recommend
- [WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wsl2.md): 115 recommend
- [Cygwin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cygwin.md): 25 recommend
- [WinApps](https://hackerapproved.com/p/winapps.md): 19 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "WSL1 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 1)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/wsl1/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).