32
Is the Windows Subsystem for Linux worth it? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
53 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I've had a pretty poor experience with it myself, so I wanna see what the Linux community thinks about this.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 28 points 2 years ago (7 children)

I am a software developer and am forced to have Windows on my work computer. WSL allows me to have a Linux terminal that I can use directly on my files without needed a VM.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 7 child comments
    •
  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Same. Well, not forced, but using Linux would just make everything more difficult. I like being able to drop to a shell and use a Linux environment with its useful utilities to manipulate stuff on my Windows PC.

    Yeah, I could use mingw, but that is a pain, and I can't just apt install stuff.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Not the same as apt, but there's Chocolately, which is actually a legitimate package manager for Windows.

    choco install firefox

    There's also a package called gsudo which allows you to preface a PowerShell command with sudo to run it as an administrator. It will cause a UAC prompt.

    sudo choco update all
  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I guess that's a bonus.

    But being forced to use a terminal to do anything is kinda hard to deal with if you're not a developer. I'm probably guessing this didn't bother you that much.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    What are you trying to do on WSL? I think the whole point of WSL originally was to have a linux terminal on Windows, before they added graphics in WSL 2.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 years ago

    I was trying to run applications on it, similar to their Windows Subsystem for Android that they released as an update to Windows 11. I have to say, the latter is significantly easier to deal with imo.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent