Windows Subsystem for Linux Distribution Switcher | Hacker News Reader

Windows Subsystem for Linux Distribution Switcher

github.com

85 pointsvgallur14 comments

Weird not to see Arch in the list, https://github.com/alwsl/alwsl did the trick for me.

I knew alwsl (Arch Linux as Windows Subsystem for Linux) long before this WSL distribution switcher ;-)

Anyway, I run Linux as workstation so I don't really need WSL. Plus I have never laid my hands on Windows 10 so far (I ran Cygwin on the only Windows 7 machine we have at home).

Do any of arch's benefits (aside from rolling releases) matter much in a virtualized environment?

Is there a way to chroot the linux distro? I'd love to be able to have multiple systems (even if I could only have 1 active at a time). It would be great for experimentation ala VMs.

That is why we have VMs this is not a VM but a subsystem that is sharing the same space as Windows.

His request is not really all that unreasonable. And given how the subsystems work seems to me like it might be within reason to implement.

But you don't really have a distribution you have Linux Tools in Windows. I have seen some github work on switching between the Linux in Windows.

Great work, I'll definitely be checking this out. I find myself using the WSL more and more recently. It still has plenty of rough edges, but Microsoft seem to be committed to improving it. The lack of a full Linux like terminal is probably one of the bigger reasons I can't switch fully over to Windows.

Supposedly whenever it exits beta they will publish a stable API/ABI, at which point hopefully different software platforms and IDEs (e.g. IntelliJ, Visual Studio) can target it and interface more directly with it.

My only holdout for Linux right now is that I can't just tell Pycharm to use WSL for the Python interpreter; you still have to register the WSL Python as a remote SSH connection.

I would actually not mind using windows if there was a way to use a native linux toolchain (including running and debugging) from within Windows. Especially if I could use something like CLion to do it. But alas it's not quite there yet. Valgrind doesn't even work yet.

The lack of a full Linux like terminal is also my current hold back. I know I can use VcXsrv and run xfce4-terminal, but I would rather use something that is more native to Windows than some hacky solution. In addition, now that the Windows Console supports 24-bit color, using things like ConEmu feels like two steps back (ConEmu doesn't support 24-bit color).

This drives my crazy BUT I have found mobaxterm http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/ is the best solution for me. So much so I threw money at them.

I've been using mintty and it's been pretty nice so far https://github.com/mintty/wsltty

I just run a ssh server in a separate window in some hidden virtual desktop and use PuTTY

Works great

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