• dink@lemmy.world
    271·
    2 days ago

    Most WSL users I know all run Linux at home; WSL is the best they can get at work.

  • Hello Hotel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    51·
    2 days ago

    WSL is Linux On a Budget. Its rough as hell but hey, if its all you have practical access to.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    143·
    3 days ago

    When using WSL, be sure to not mention anything about that when reporting bugs because that’ll just confuse the issue for the maintainers. They like having that casually mentioned about 20 messages into the troubleshooting process.

    • DacoTaco@lemmy.world
      19·
      3 days ago

      Pff, issue reports should ask for the output of ‘uname -ar’. It clearly shows its wsl as wsl runs a special kernel

    • chingadera@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 days ago

      I’m a big fan of going on WSL forums and letting them know everything is working well for give or take 20 messages, then I let them know I need help troubleshooting.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    16·
    3 days ago

    I tried to get the *arr stack running on it at one point, using Docker.

    Do not do this. Just install the Windows apps. Yes, it’s a mess. Yes, they work.

      • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        It was a while ago now, bit I think it was trying to get all the individual bits to talk to each other (radarr to prowlarr, etc). I was following some guide and that’s where it all fell apart.

        • kamen@lemmy.world
          4·
          2 days ago

          Sounds like a network configuration issue of the containers - you either have to use the host network (probably not recommended) or to map the necessary ports of each app. But trying to do that in WSL sounds like an extra layer of fuckery that you don’t necessarily have to deal with. Running Docker directly on Windows sounds like the more sane thing to do in that case.

            • kamen@lemmy.worldEnglish
              3·
              2 days ago

              I know, but it’s managed by Docker, i.e. you don’t have to do anything special.

          • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
            31·
            2 days ago

            Yeah, it was blocking the networking between them, and after Google failed me for an hour, I realised they all had Windows installers so there wasn’t really a lot of point persevering with weird half-broken versions of Linux and Docker.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
    85·
    3 days ago

    I don’t think anyone is a “wsl user” so much as they’ve found themselves in a position where the lowest friction solution is utilizing wsl for a given situation.

    Around 2019, even up until like 2022 if you wanted to run docker in windows, that was how to do it.

    • coconut@programming.devEnglish
      29·
      3 days ago

      I learned the shell in wsl before I switched to Linux full time. I wasn’t trying to learn it intentionally. Just didn’t want to develop software on windows. It’s a great gateway drug that reduces friction by a lot.

    • frezik@midwest.social
      7·
      3 days ago

      That’s where I was a few years ago, and then I switched back to proper Linux. I was only keeping Windows at all for games, but then most of the games I played started working fine on Linux (thank you, Valve).

      Plus, I tried doing some TensorFlow stuff with CUDA (Nvidia) GPU acceleration. In theory, you can do it in pure Windows, but nobody has bothered trying to do that. You’re on your own if you try it. The usual way is to do GPU passthrough to WSL. There have been three different ways to do that over the years, only one of which currently works. If you happen to Google a page that tells you one of the wrong ways, there’s a good chance you’ll need to reinstall to get it working the right way.

      Using pure Linux for this stuff is no problem. Just use Nvidia’s server drivers instead of gaming drivers. All the AI datacenters are using Nvidia GPUs on Linux, so Nvidia is highly motivated to make this work. Someday, Windows might be as easy to use as Linux.

    • folkrav@lemmy.ca
      9·
      3 days ago

      Pretty much my situation. Work stuff, Windows machine, but Linux/Docker workflow and I refuse to let go of my POSIX shell.

    • Narwhalrus@lemmy.world
      5·
      3 days ago

      What’s the current best way to run docker on Windows?

      I’m still using wsl(2) for that in 2025 because it seems to be the path of least resistance on Win11.

      • foggy@lemmy.world
        4·
        3 days ago

        That could very well be the best practice. I haven’t had to run docker in windows since then.

    • Ricaz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      My company only allows us to use the company-provided Windows image, so I do all my work inside a WSL2 tmux session.

      JetBrains IDEs and VSCode also have WSL connectors so it works acceptably well.

      It also handily dodges all the Windows security policies (like installing software). You can even run Xorg apps from it.

      I’m still forced to use MS Teams and Outlook, though…

    • forrcaho@lemmy.world
      10·
      2 days ago

      I only use Windows because I have to work with a corporation’s IT helpdesk staff to get on their VPN if I want to do contract work for them. They are not likely to help me get connected from Linux; they’ll just find another contract dev. Once in, I do everything in Linux because my code will ultimately run in a Linux cloud container of some sort. WSL works well enough for me to do this. I’d rather have Linux on bare metal, but whatever. I’m in; I’m coding; I’m getting paid. I’ll put up with a little bit of suck.

    • Torn Apart By Dogs@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      its for when the reqs include azure ad and the whole office has a m$ fetish yet you still gotta get your bag without losing your decades-built toolset AND you have a choice at all

    • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      2·
      2 days ago

      Anecdote: I have an IDE that only works on Windows that can build applications for Linux. I use MinGW as part of the packaging process (AND I FUCKING HATE IT OH MY GOD. All of the pathing is broken!). As of yesterday I learned that WSL is a thing that might replace MinGW and make some processes of packaging for linux targets a little easier.

      • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 day ago

        I’ve used both. What I can tell you is that moving to WSL is like moving to Linux wholesale. Treat it like porting your toolchain.

        IIRC, MinGW tools will happily take windows style paths (e.g. “C:\Users~myuser\projects”). If your tooling/scripting depends on being able to use Windows style paths, you’ll have to fix that first or you’re going to have a really bad time. There may be other small differences between MinGW tools and what ships on Ubuntu (or whatever Linux you decide to use in the WSL).

    • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      2 days ago

      Run Linux stuff on Windows.

      A big use case is development with Docker containers.

      • DigitalDilemma@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5·
        2 days ago

        Thanks - I can kind of see that, as docker on windows is majorly broken. I think I’d just run it in a linux vm, as I do with most of my developing, but I can see some might not want that overhead.

        • rmuk@feddit.ukEnglish
          7·
          2 days ago

          That’s the best bit about WSL (at least, version 2) is that it is a VM running a full version of Linux using Microsoft Hypervisor. There’s a bunch of drivers included that allow Windows and Linux to share filesystems and if you run Wayland/X apps in Linux they run on the Windows desktop.

          • DigitalDilemma@lemmy.mlEnglish
            3·
            2 days ago

            Sharing filesystems could be useful, I can see that.

            I do that with target dev platforms anyway, using things like NFS, samba and sftp, but I do see that it could work well for this.

    • pool_spray_098@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 days ago

      I love having it at work, so I can write and run bash scripts on my Windows work PC.

      I have dozens if Linux servers available to me but sometimes it just is easier to run a script locally.

      • DigitalDilemma@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I too do that, working from a windows vm and writing code for linux - but I push it to a linux vm for testing. Never occurred to me to use WSL and have another environment to configure and maintain for dev that’s different to the target one.

        But fair play if that suits you! Each to their own, and I’m sure I do things that make no sense to others.

          • Hello Hotel@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            Oddly enoigh, they recognize this and are patching the hundreds of tiny holes. I would argue they began trying (IMO malformed) fixes back since the launch of windows 8 and .NET. It’s backwards compatability means tiptoing around some pretty huge tech dept. (Windows was DOS and had no security model at one point) Each time they try to pull people off of their older SDKs. If and when they dont stick, the pile of stuff to support grows one more.

            (Also WTH where they thinking with windows 8 apps!? The oversimplicity of the UI leading to huge patches of unused screen space, the art design or lack thereof, the janky unpolished UI elements. It’s embarrising for how much pride they had for it.)

  • Guidy@lemmy.world
    322·
    3 days ago

    Aww, cry harder.

    I started using Linux when it was Redhat, in the 1990s, and it came on a bunch of CDs.

    And I use WSL in addition to Debian, Raspbian, and Ubuntu.

    Knock this tribal bullshit off.

    • null@slrpnk.net
      23·
      3 days ago

      Yeah, why would they post something like this to the community for serious takes about Linux?

    • Optional@lemmy.world
      15·
      3 days ago

      CD’s?! Ooh La La Mister Fancy French man with the digital media! Back in our day linux came on a plastic 45 inside Fruity Pebbles cereal and it had loose crusty sugar in the grooves that introduced errors in X that meant the screen scrolled like an out-of-whack tv and you had to wait for the prompt to roll by so you could try another resolution that would core dump and spit you back to the A:\ drive and eject the disc into your shins like a frisbee! And that’s the way we liked it!