Ubuntu userland running on Windows 10

[kacir]

Please notice I have posted this on March 31st, NOT April the 1st.
I think that Microsoft has missed an opportunity to pull an epic prank - announcing this 2 days later, on April the 1st. The biggest joke would be that this is real ;-)

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/...ws-developers/

Dustin Kirkland reports: yesterday on Microsoft’s Build developer conference Kevin Gallo presented an opening keynote. Running of complete Ubuntu userland on Windows 10.
Soon we will be able to install the complete Ubuntu Userland under Windows 10. Not in a virtual machine, not the Cygwin-like stuff. Linux ELF binaries natively running on Windows 10.

Here’s let’s break it down slowly…

1. Windows 10 users
2. Can open the Windows Start menu
3. And type “bash” [enter]
4. Which opens a cmd.exe console
5. Running Ubuntu’s /bin/bash
6. With full access to all of Ubuntu user space
7. Yes, that means apt, ssh, rsync, find, grep, awk, sed, sort, xargs, md5sum, gpg, curl, wget, apache, mysql, python, perl, ruby, php, gcc, tar, vim, emacs, diff, patch…
8. And most of the tens of thousands binary packages available in the Ubuntu archives!

“Right, so just Ubuntu running in a virtual machine?” Nope! This isn’t a virtual machine at all. There’s no Linux kernel booting in a VM under a hypervisor. It’s just the Ubuntu user space.

“Ah, okay, so this is Ubuntu in a container then?” Nope! This isn’t a container either. It’s native Ubuntu binaries running directly in Windows.

“Hum, well it’s like cygwin perhaps?” Nope! Cygwin includes open source utilities are recompiled from source to run natively in Windows. Here, we’re talking about bit-for-bit, checksum-for-checksum Ubuntu ELF binaries running directly in Windows.

You still do not believe me, do you?
Here is another source
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingap...tu-on-windows/

and of course a Slashdot discussion
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/...-to-windows-10

[murg]

Microsoft is porting SQL Server to Linux (or a reasonable facsimile).

This isn't Balmer's Microsoft anymore.

[cromag]

I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu on a couple of machines, but I don't know about running one alongside the other.

I'd be interested in security issues. Windows is a lot more vulnerable than Ubuntu/Linux and with Ubuntu and Windows both running I wonder if a potential threat could "cross over."

[Katsunami]

Finally. I've been using Unix Services for Windows, and later Cygwin, for many years now. If I could I'd use Babun, which is based on Cygwin and highly polished, but (imho) not updated fast enough. It's always multiple versions behind.

The only bad point in this news is that MS is working with Canonical. I intensely dislike Ubuntu, both its name and the way they seem to suffer from the "not invented here" syndrome.

MS should have based their Linux system directly on Debian.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by cromag

I dual boot Windows and Ubuntu on a couple of machines, but I don't know about running one alongside the other.

I'd be interested in security issues. Windows is a lot more vulnerable than Ubuntu/Linux and with Ubuntu and Windows both running I wonder if a potential threat could "cross over."

If you need a small Linux utility from a huge number of ones running on Ubuntu, there is no need to look for a windows port, no need to download windows binary from an unknown server.
Just goto bash and type apt-get install wget and a few moments later you can use wget to download sometning.
So they are not running alongside. Windows 10 just has capability to run unmodified, standard Linux ELF binaries and has complete standard Ubuntu userland pre-installed.
This is no Linux. No GNU/Linux kernel running.

There are no additional security issues (at the moment) the system is as [in]secure as the standard Windows 10. It can be a little bit safer, because now when you need some obscure command-line utility, there is no need to download a windows version from questionable source. Just type sudo apt-get install mc and a few moments later you have Midnight Commander available.
I alwas cringe when I have to download some small utility from softpedia or some sleazy share-ware site taht is trying to push their "downloader and installer" to help you with the download of the selected piece of shareware / freeware.

I wonder how long it will take hackers to put together a system for running GUI programs. Cygwin does have [a kind of] X-window ported. This is how you can run programs such as FontForge (compiled under Cygwin as a Windows binary) under windows.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by cromag

I'd be interested in security issues. Windows is a lot more vulnerable than Ubuntu/Linux and with Ubuntu and Windows both running I wonder if a potential threat could "cross over."

That hasn't been true since Windows Vista. Even Windows XP, Windows 2000 and NT4 can be made as secure as Linux. The one difference is that Windows is mostly configured to be very permissive, and Linux is configured to be restrictive.

While the second is more secure out of the box, the first is much more user-friendly.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by kacir

...

Cygwin is a library on top of Windows. It wraps the Windows API into a Linux/POSIX one. The programs are still required to be Windows-programs though, so you need to recompile any Linux software under Cygwin to be able to run on Windows, and they supply the Cygwin libraries along with it.

MinGW, on the other hand (which started as a Cygwin port) compiles everything needed into the executable and creates a program that seems to be Windows-native.

I wonder if it is just the BASH-shell that is ported to Windows, or indeed as you say, the entire Ubuntu userland. As this subsystem has the capability to run Linux binaries, it should be possible to run GUI programs on top of it if the entire userland is available, even without recompiling.

[frahse]

Originally Posted by kacir

Please notice I have posted this on March 31st, NOT April the 1st.
I think that Microsoft has missed an opportunity to pull an epic prank - announcing this 2 days later, on April the 1st. The biggest joke would be that this is real ;-)

https://insights.ubuntu.com/2016/03/...ws-developers/

Dustin Kirkland reports: yesterday on Microsoft’s Build developer conference Kevin Gallo presented an opening keynote. Running of complete Ubuntu userland on Windows 10.
Soon we will be able to install the complete Ubuntu Userland under Windows 10. Not in a virtual machine, not the Cygwin-like stuff. Linux ELF binaries natively running on Windows 10.



You still do not believe me, do you?
Here is another source
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingap...tu-on-windows/

and of course a Slashdot discussion
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/...-to-windows-10

This sounds great. When I have some time I am going to try it.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Cygwin is a library on top of Windows. It wraps the Windows API into a Linux/POSIX one. The programs are still required to be Windows-programs though, so you need to recompile any Linux software under Cygwin to be able to run on Windows, and they supply the Cygwin libraries along with it.

MinGW, on the other hand (which started as a Cygwin port) compiles everything needed into the executable and creates a program that seems to be Windows-native.

I wonder if it is just the BASH-shell that is ported to Windows, or indeed as you say, the entire Ubuntu userland. As this subsystem has the capability to run Linux binaries, it should be possible to run GUI programs on top of it if the entire userland is available, even without recompiling.

They have described it as "WINE in reverse", so not just the bash shell.

[Greg Anos]

How to eat another OS. . .

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

How to eat another OS. . .

Not really.
People who want to run linux will continue running linux. People who hate the new Windows UI will continue to hate the new Windows UI.

People who had to use linux in order to have a sane developer workflow now have another option not as cumbersome as Cygwin, and builtin.

Microsoft is not trying to attract Linux users, they are trying to prevent Windows developers from fleeing to Linux out of simple desperation.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

How to eat another OS. . .

Ever since the days of XP, Windows has had the capability of running different "subsystems" to implement different API sets. Eg, XP had a POSIX subsystem, although I can't recall ever seeing it used for anything practical.

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Ever since the days of XP, Windows has had the capability of running different "subsystems" to implement different API sets. Eg, XP had a POSIX subsystem, although I can't recall ever seeing it used for anything practical.

It was practical as a checkbox filler in some government contracts (or, at least, that's what my dim memory of the times offers up).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rkomar

It was practical as a checkbox filler in some government contracts (or, at least, that's what my dim memory of the times offers up).

Yes, that's my recollection, too. If memory serves me correctly, POSIX compliance was a requirement for computers bought by the government.

I strongly suspect that this Linux API is being implemented as a subsystem, given that the blog article specifically says that such applications will have no access to the Windows API or Windows applications. Such isolation is a characteristic of subsystems.

[Greg Anos]

Maybe we should call is MINELOS. Microsoft Is Not an Emulator of Linux OS.

((WINE - Wine Is Not an Emulator)...