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koalalorenzo | 5 years ago

100% agree with the video. I am a macOS user just to have some of the GNU tools and VMs or containers (Vagrant, and Docker for desktop) on the fly when I need to work and get shit done. I still believe that WSL is some sort of slimmed/powered down to nothing version of any gnu/linux distro, and after using it for a while I felt the pain of getting things done and went back to macOS and VMs. I still believe that Microsoft is improving, but I am not sure how it is helping with WSL...

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rorykoehler|5 years ago

What I want to understand is why use Windows if you want to use Linux? Surely it's easier to just use Linux.

neverminder|5 years ago

It's politics. A while ago I interviewed for a back end dev position at this "big" company and they wanted to give me an offer at which point I made some requirements such as couple of decent monitors and Ubuntu (WSL wasn't yet out then, but I wouldn't have considered it anyway). They said no, because they were constrained by their "IT department" which wanted to install all kinds of shitty spyware as I understood. They also admitted that they lost other good developers who made similar demands like working on Macs and such. Needless to say I too declined their offer, because I'm not interested in companies with developer-hostile policies.

bauerd|5 years ago

Some are forced to use Windows eg in consulting

bzb3|5 years ago

The wsl brings you the advantages of Linux without the disadvantages.

teraku|5 years ago

WSL is just horribly slow for me. So I use Linux exclusively at home, but my work mandates Windows (although we now allow Mac, and with my next hardware change I might just switch over to Mac). So to get into the comfort of my trusted toolchain I use WSL at work. Our company lags behind windows updates, since they only install "trusted" versions, whatever that means, and thus I still have WSL1. I heard WSL2 brings a lot of performance improvements. And I really hope it does, WSL1 is soooo slow. Especially compared to my home setups. The friction is just so high still. So I believe if you come from Windows and want use Linux tools with WSL, I think you might find it comfortable for some, but it's a horrible introduction to Linux, since a lot of it will be slow and you'd think "oh Linux is just as bad as Windows, I'd rather stick to my guns".

bzb3|5 years ago

I remember trying to use wsl1 for WordPress development; it was so slow most pages would time out and I couldn't do anything.

TheGreatCabbage|5 years ago

I found that one of my Python programs, which performs heavy calculations, was actually faster in WSL 2 than when running natively in Windows.

I haven't tested it with WSL 1 though.

virtue3|5 years ago

WSL2 is -significantly- faster for most dev flows.

m0xte|5 years ago

Exactly the same outcome here.

The killer for me is friction and despite Microsoft’s best efforts, it’s always the most painful platform to work on. Nothing is finished, polished or reliable.

(I include WSL2 in that)

MCOfficer|5 years ago

WSL is pretty good as long as you stick to the command line (and don't work with virtualization). I hear they are using a "proper" kernel with WSL2, so it probably got even better since i switched.

mpfundstein|5 years ago

i do most of my work in WSL2 (with win terminal - which is quite good). even if its to just to jack into my headless linux servers via ssh. its just so much better than putty. but i also have vim and screen open all the time as well for some local dev stuff. which i refuse to do on win. pretty happy with it. without, i would not stick with win10 as my primary machine. there are still some annoyances though which ms will fix i hope.

granted mac osx does this still better. but i dont want to use mac anymore. did for 8+ years...