For what it's worth Windows 10 now has a bash shell based on Ubuntu available.
http://www.howtogeek.com/249966/how-to-install-and-use-the-l...
It's a full Ubuntu userland and you can even run graphical (X) applications. I've used it for Pebble development, running the (python + ARM GCC) SDK and QEMU-based emulator all on Windows. I've run into a few minor issues but for the majority of tasks it works great -- I've completely stopped using my Ubuntu VM and do all my Linux tasks in WSL.
The WSL has potential to become a very useful tool. So much so I'm considering switching from macOS on my next laptop or so. Unfortunately unlike your case, my workflow depends on a lot of networking code. WSL still has many gaps in the socket emulation pieces. It'll likely mature over time, and it's impressive that some people are already able to switch from a Linux VM!
A co-worker is also using it to run cross compilers for embedded linux hardware devices (various patched versions of GCC and such) and it's been flawless for him, which I found quite impressive too.
In my view, Windows 10 is still miles away in consistency across the entire system, compared to macOS. Windows 10 actually made it worse, because it's trying to accommodate both Windows 7 and Windows 8 design.
Currently I don't think we have alternatives to macOS. I understand that I sound like a grumpy Apple fanboy, but Windows is't ready to replace macOS. The distance between macOS and Windows have increased in the later years, and not because Apple have improved anything, it's Microsoft who have made Windows worse.
But then again I rarely install new things, only have a few base programs I run routinely, and reformat regularly.
I've just had a ton of issues with the mouse becoming unresponsive... and then having to do a restart, whereas on El Capitan and Yosemite I could basically leave my computer on for forever.
Same here! Also i start to suffer from 'update-fatigue' when using Windows. The endless updates, reboots, and god knows what it's doing in the background which consumes resources... it all just feels so clumsy. I've never experienced anything like this in OSX.
MS "needs" (?) to prioritize "don't torment your users". Of course, for corporate captives, they can torment away with impunity since The Management has already decided You Must Endure... (and probably locked out the setting in question, as well)
I still like the Mac's unobtrusive "get it tonight after I shut down" option, though :-) (or Ubuntu's "I'll get it when I'm good and ready", but that's not a system for worker bees)
No, no they don't.
If the user knows what they're doing, they run Windows Update manually at times when it's convenient for them (e.g. just before going out to lunch) so that they never encounter a forced reboot situation.
If the user doesn't know what they're doing, they exactly the people who need to be forced to the latest update so they don't wind up inadvertently joining a botnet.
And, of course, there are ways to forcibly disable WU for really advanced users but at that point whatever befalls them is quite clearly their own responsibility.
So, win-win for everybody but the malware makers.
Like IBM and Oracle, MS is in the position of "Management says we've already won, so suck it, users!"
Payback ... and all :-)
I know you should save often and bad things can happen like a power outage or a glitch or something, but those things are rare. My Windows 10 machine choosing to reboot itself without telling me? At least once a week.
Imagine if you had random power outages once a week, and having a UPS plugged in couldn't stop it.
First of all you can set the time interval when the Windows will be able to update https://i.imgur.com/BZNadeE.png
And even if you are working in this time Windows ask you what do you prefer - reboot now or later.
I'am not Windows fanboy. I sue MacOS, Windows and Linux at the same time.
When I'm done with my work for the day on Windows and I go to bed, I'm never sure if everything will still be there when I wake up. Far too often I wake up and I'm at a login screen with all of my active windows and documents closed. That's incredibly disruptive, and there's no way to stop that.
There is no way to tell Windows 10 "don't reboot until I explicitly ask you to do so".
Really? Windows has its share of hair pulling annoyances to be sure, but endless might be overstating it.
In my experience since switching, I find that resource consumption is comparable to OSX. I get that this is anecdotal, but I leave my main machines on 24-7, and I basically only reboot when an update forces me to, which sometimes is once a week (when there are frequent updates), but most of the time it is for stretches longer than two weeks.
http://superuser.com/questions/946957/stopping-all-automatic...
I'm managing a friend's Win10Pro machine and so far it's been awesome. On the other hand, OSX which I'm running seems clunky and old-fashioned.
In my view GNU/Linux distributions are still miles away from Windows 10 in consistency across the entire system.
Give Elementary a go, you may be surprised.
I wrote "consistency across the entire system". I immediately believe that they did a lot of GUI polish and polishing of the default apps. But polishing the GUI of a POSIX-like system does not deliver consistency (only GUI polish). There is still the whole UNIX-like subsurface (like it or not), which delivers completely different abstractions than the GUI does (this is clearly not consistent).
For example rio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_(windowing_system)) implements Windowing as private namespace (a central element of Plan 9) - very consistent.
BeOS (for which currently under the name HaikuOS they try to reimplement it in an open source way) is another example of an OS which was designed from beginning on to have a GUI and is thus also very consistent.
I do think they try a bit too hard to look like macOS, but if you're going for the best desktop Linux experience, why not copy the best commercial ⁎nix desktop?
I agree completely about BeOS/Haiku; BeOS was my daily driver for several years until the death of the company caused me to have to move on. I have yet to find a modern OS that even comes close to that kind of cohesive, sensible, practical approach to desktop computing. Haiku is coming along well, but it's still not stable enough for daily use beyond dogfooding for Haiku devs.
I have never seen a GNU/Linux distribution where I didn't have to configure some things via modification of configuration files in a text editor. Even these two differences (GUI vs. text file editing) is much more different than a few different design styles in Windows' control panel. Also the way settings are set in configuration files is IMHO even more different among different GNU/Linux applications than the different design styles in Windows' control panel.
It's a bit of a blemish that there are two control panels, but almost no users are ever exposed to Win32. You can do virtually everything (from updates to domain join to adding/removing Windows components) from the modern Settings app. The legacy control panel is just that, and is irrelevant for most users. I'd love to see it modernized, but there are many much better uses of resources (security! performance! battery life!) than modernizing 90s-era utilities that few customers are ever exposed to.
Windows 10 isn't a good example of consistency, but every GNU/Linux distribution I have seen is much worse.
Though I still miss: 1. MacBook's touchpad :-( 2. Emacs-like keybindings everywhere in OS (like MacOS has).
I use it to spin up linux images that contain all the devtools that I need, and mount files/code from windows in there. For a terminal just enter the image with exec /bin/sh. To get a consistent experience I also use msys bash (which is bundled with git for windows) for terminal use on windows. With that setup entering and exiting linux containers feels very similar to on OSX.
The downside of docker for windows is that you need HyperV activated, which weans VirtualBox no longer works. The older boot2docker solution worked together with VirtualBox - however it didn't support filesharing between windows and docker containers, so there's unfortunately a tradeoff.
I've tried docker for windows, and even WSL+Ubuntu+Bash, and it's just not as good. I use conemu, VS Code, and Chrome more than anything else.
I thought that was true on any OS... :/
All word-of-mouth, of course.
Not really surprising (dev version, comes with warnings about compatibility, ...). But why would you let that hold you back for trying it out for what you are going to use it for? Counter-anecdote: I've ran gui apps like SublimeText, gcc, ... without crashing; also see other comments. tldr; try it first-hand instead of relying on anecdotal proof it isn't, or is, ready.
WSL (i.e. the horrendously named Bash on Ubuntu on Windows)
Note that 'WSL' and 'Ubuntu on Windows' and 'Bash on Ubuntu on Windows' are seperate terms for different things
The bash subsystem is interesting, but I'd go with the virtualization solution first.