Ubuntu on Windows 10

[HW3]

According to sources at Canonical, Ubuntu Linux's parent company, and Microsoft, you'll soon be able to run Ubuntu on Windows 10.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/microso...to-windows-10/

[Rockin Robbins]

You've always been able to run Ubuntu on Windows since the XP days with WUBI, a Windows installer which has been on every installation copy of Ubuntu since 2008. It installs Linux as just another program running in Windows. You get none of the security advantages of Linux, it slows down Linux so you would think it was slower than Windows when actually it is more than twice as fast.

They are just defanging Windows enough here that it will tolerate another operating system. Probably an anti-trust move more than anything and I'm not happy that Canonical went for it. Windows needs to be attacked, not coddled and encouraged in its monopolistic jihad.

[Skybird]

Where Microsoft tries to get into touch with Linux, only disaster for Linux can follow. I wish the Linux would go to lightspeed whenever the see ;Microsoft approaching on the horizon. I have zero sympathy for MS and Linux trying to "cooperate". Microsoft will not let this opportunity pass by unused in a bid for trying to corrupt Linux.The only winning move for Linux is to not play with Microsoft at all.

[Rockin Robbins]

To be absolutely fair, WUBI in 2008 was my first foray into investigating Linux with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. Yikes! What an unfinished work that was. But you could see the potential and I've been a fan ever since. It also began my fascination with the Konquerer web/file browser. It's also a Swiss army knife for opening just about any file on earth. It's precisely the kind of project that would never come our of Microsoft and demonstrates the superiority of the Linux community.

WUBI led me to a true Linux installation. I don't think I'm alone there.

[HW3]

"Even Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, who has battled Microsoft forever, was stoked. Shuttleworth said: "The native availability of a full Ubuntu environment on Windows, without virtualization or emulation, is a milestone that defies convention.""

http://="http://www.zdnet.com/articl...n-hell/"<br />

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by HW3

"Even Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, who has battled Microsoft forever, was stoked. Shuttleworth said: "The native availability of a full Ubuntu environment on Windows, without virtualization or emulation, is a milestone that defies convention.""

="http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-cozies-up-to-ubuntu-as-developers-welcome-cold-day-in-hell/"

That is a most curious quote, as WUBI has been doing just that for nine years! Wonder what's got into that man?

WUBI even has a transparent mode where Ubuntu and Windows appear to run on the same desktop and you don't care whether an application belongs to Windows or Linux. WUBI does slow Linux down about to the extent that a virtual machine does, but you can cut and paste between Linux and Windows programs even. It's pretty darned good, but it wakes up curiosity to see how Linux runs wide open and you end up installing Ubuntu by itself so it's not safely held in the slowing arms of Windows.

WUBI is on every Ubuntu installation disk as a primary option that you MUST see, not buried in some little seen sub-menu.

So what Shuttleworth must be smoking is really interesting.

[Rockin Robbins]

One blog I read frequently is OMG Ubuntu, a frankly Linux promotional and information blog. So I was minding my own business, reading the blog and came across this:

Why You Shouldn't Panic About the Microsoft Linux Lovefest

Now you must keep in mind that this is only for running Linux command line background infastructure in Windows so that Windows can operate on the increasingly Linux-based Internet server landscape. The article puts it that Microsoft will "provide first-class support for the open-source command line tools that developers love, from python to apt to vim, natively on the Windows desktop."

However, to my mind, this blogger is being very naive about Microsoft's newly minted non-evil status. And this comes from the fact that this user single-boots Ubuntu in his daily life. He hasn't had to struggle with Microsoft's increasingly thuggish bludgeoning of user preferences and settings and its spyware orientation. He hasn't had to witness the transformation of an operating system from a program that helps the user run the software a user installs on his machine to a program whose primary function is serving advertising while it collects and allows Microsoft to sell your personal information at no benefit to yourself.

It's fascinating to read his take: Linux has won--Microsoft has surrendered to the open source revolution. He goes so far as to say "However perturbing it may feel right now, Ubuntu on Windows 10 actually an endorsement of open-source ethic. It’s Microsoft saying “you got it right, we got it wrong.”

This lives along side another article by another author who was shocked at actually seeing another person in the a cafe he uses for WI-FI access actually using Ubuntu on his laptop. There's a reason for that. Microsoft has been knocking itself out to bully hardware manufacturers, bamboozle its users and refusing to allow Windows users to even read data from a Linux formatted flash drive. They have dedicated an amazing amount of effort to pushing Linux into oblivion.

So I can't connect those two dots. They are mutually exclusive zeitgeists. In my mind that means that one of the viewpoints is wrong, and my personal experience points to the article linked above as the odd man out.

Still, a fascinating look at what happens when you live in a sterilized environment. You lose your resistance to infection.

[Rockin Robbins]

Run BASH on Ubuntu On Windows

First, this headline is written by the Microsoft people, not me so forgive the questionable wording there. But the article goes a long way to explaining what the feature is and what it is not.

First of all, it is not a full blown Ubuntu installation running concurrently with Windows and sharing cut and paste buffers or interoperable with Windows programs. It is stictly an implementation of BASH, the Bourne Again SHell, command line Linux interface to run some Linux command line utilities.

You can now run Bash scripts, Linux command-line tools like sed, awk, grep, and you can even try Linux-first tools like Ruby, Git, Python, etc. directly on Windows. You can also access your Windows filesystem from within Bash allowing you to work on the same set of files using your preferred Windows tools or Linux command-line tools:

So can you try out any of the great Linux GUIs within Windows? No.
Can you try out Konqueror web browser on Windows? No.
Can you cut from Linux command line and paste into a Windows program? No.

If you want to do that stuff, a WUBI installation, featured on every Ubuntu installation disk since 2007 or 2008 gives you a full, interoperable Linux installation working within Windows. It does everything the new Windows Subsystem for Linux does and lets you actually use the operating system in its entirety.

Windows Subsystem for Linux available with Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14316 and coming to Windows 10 general users later. Yawn!

[HW3]

Another article about the fast ring update by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols for Linux and Open Source | April 7, 2016 -- 11:23 GMT (04:23 PDT) | Topic: Enterprise Software

http://www.zdnet.com/article/ubuntu-...on-windows-10/

The last paragraph intrigued me. I know next to nothing about Linux so your thoughts on this are appreciated.

[Rockin Robbins]

First of all, the title of the article is a total crock.

The newest Windows 10 Fast Ring release, 14316, includes Ubuntu and Bash. It may not have a Linux foundation, but this is close as a Windows PC has ever come to also being a Linux computer.

is just ignorant. Up until lately, and even now, if you're willing to squirm out from Microsoft's efforts to make it impossible to run anything but Windows on the latest hardware, ALL COMPUTERS ARE LINUX COMPUTERS.

And that's not the whole truth. My computer, when I boot up, runs the Grub (GRand Unified Boot system) program, which asks me whether I want to boot Windows or Linux. Windows has such a multiboot selector, but Grub is much better and more customizable.

So my Windows computer is also a full Linux computer. In fact, Linux runs about twice as fast as Windows on any PC you can run it on. Lately, with UEFI boot systems Microsoft is protecting you by trying to make it impossible to boot any OS but Windows on new hardware. They will fail at that. And Windows refuses to read a Linux formatted disk, or even to acknowledge that it exists at all, even declining to issue it a drive letter! Microsoft has expended a lot of time, money and effort to keep you from learning about how good Linux is.

Now, this Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is not what you might be hoping for. It simply gives you the equivalent of the Windows Command window that lets you execute what used to be DOS commands. Only in the command window DOS has been crippled for your enjoyment and is mostly useless except for low level operations. On Windows, the command line has been allowed to wither and nearly die.

In the Linux world the command line is the church of the devout and true Linux users. It is high and exalted, worshiped by those too knowledgeable for their own good. For us mortals that just means that the Linux command line is a rich toolset with many, many uses and using it can give you a deeper understanding of the Linux galaxy if you want it. And the GUIs and BASH command line are interoperable! A GUI program can use BASH scripts. A BASH script can call up a GUI program. You never have to even look at a BASH command line if you don't want to. You never have to look at a mouse pointer in a GUI if you don't want to. Because Linux is infinitely customizable. The BASH command line looks something like the Windows command line but make no mistake about it, It's a Spacex Dragon 2 capsule compared to a Model T.

However, using GUIs is how we work with computers this day. The breathless enthusiasm that Microsoft is showing for a BASH window is as if Apple were to announce a Windows on OSX program where Apple users would be able to explore the wonders of MS-DOS 3.3! You too can run WordStar on your Apple McIntosh! Rather than give people the true flavor of Windows, it would try to tell them that Windows is a primitive system without a graphical user interface.

That is what the Windows Subsystem for Linux is. The equivalent of a Windows command window and pretending that is the Windows experience. From the article:

Will people be running a Linux desktop, such as Unity, Cinnamon, KDE, or Gnome, on this hybrid WIndows Linux software stack as well? That's not the plan. This stack is meant for developers. But, programmers being programmers, I'm sure we'll soon see people trying to port all Linux userspace programs, including desktops, to Windows. We live in interesting times!

Unity, Cinnamon, KDE, Gnome, LXDE, Mate, XFCE and OpenBox are just some of the GUIs you can run under Linux and you can even change them at will if you've downloaded them all. It as if you were running a Windows 10 computer and could choose to make it look and operate like Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 98SE, 95 or 3.11 at will. It would have all the guts of Windows 10 but the look and feel of what you want.

That's how Linux works: the way you want. They don't try to cram senseless garbage down your throat because "you will like it or else!" The Linux community got their panties in a wad because Ubuntu was using their own new GUI, Unity. But at any time anyone could download and use any of the other GUIs and banish Unity from their systems, never to be seen again. Unity became a good system because people weren't forced to use it. It had to earn approval in an open system. In the Linux world users are in charge.

You already know how to use Linux. You just haven't done it yet. If there's interest in it I'll work up a thread demonstrating Ubuntu Linux for the curious.

[GT182]

I was told by one of the MS tech guys at the MS store in our Mall that windows 10 is the last OS build they will do. Maybe that's the reason for MS and Linux working together more than before.

He was serious, and a couple others standing there with him agreed. If you have a MS store near you, go in and ask if MS is working on Windows 11.

[Rockin Robbins]

One of the complaints of programmers about Windows 10 has been that changes to Windows 10 have been draconian, large scale changes that break software, not updates in the traditional sense of the word.

When they deleted and renamed plugged their telemetry modules back in under a new name that was typical of the shenanigans Microsoft has been up to. Their idea is that version numbers are no longer necessary since you have no choice but to upgrade your operating system whatever they choose to do with it, no matter what vital programs you depend on for your business' survival. Yes, on the enterprise versions you can postpone updates. But they WILL HAPPEN and without some serious hacking you cannot avoid that.

So the plan is that Windows will change, just as it always has. But what they are not doing any more is version numbers. Changes to Windows yes, version numbers no.

So the techies at the MS store were like the guys at the Geek Squad. How many times have I fixed computers after Geek Squad screwed them up totally? Many. The techies are parroting Microsoft propaganda by rote and without actually studying the material to see what it really means.

Even if a new Windows 10 crew takes a shine to the KDE GUI and replaces the entire GUI with a "specially modified" (that means crippled and poorly understood) KDE GUI, it will still be called Windows 10. Yes there will be a hidden build number that will be difficult to dig out without Belarc Security Advisor, and it will tell you which version of Windows 10 you have. For instance the newest Insider version of Windows 10 is release 14316. The release number replaces the version number as a tool to let you know what species of Windows 10 you have.

It's all a game, meaning very, very little. Windows will continue to change in unpredictable ways that we will like or else. The bought and paid for Windows journalists will continue to crow how Windows is the best ever. People's standards of what they accept as an operating system will degrade and degrade as resistance is supposed to be futile. The trend to leave 3D, a fantastic advance in graphics from about 2005 and return to flat 2D with all sharp corners and a small choice of garish ugly colors presages the revolutionary advance to MS-DOS 3.3 for the future! No rules. Every program decides how it will operate completely independently! Thick manuals must be nearly memorized to begin to operate any program. The manuals describe how the program SHOULD work, but your job is to find out by trial and terror how it REALLY works.

We'll be back to 1990 and the wonderful days of dBase III+. It will be hailed as a wonderful innovation. Oh, did I mention that you'll get to choose from 16 different colors? Bring back CGA!