What are some use cases that would cause a person to choose Windows as their primary OS, but require WSL? At what point do you just move to a *nix OS and virtualize Windows on the rare occasion that it’s truly needed?
Of course I could just run some Linux distro, but that again would be limiting for non-work-stuff and I prefer not switching between OSs daily. And last time I tried I had big issues with HDPI scaling between screens, hibernation etc. And really, I just don't care that much about what OS I run. Windows works.
Blizzard games (addicted to StarCraft for life, also enjoy Diablo 3). Steam games (some are supported under Linux but I know I can run all modern games with full video card driver support).
WebEx - need this for work and it seems to really lack support under Linux. Couldn't figure out how to get this working on my Ubuntu 20.04 laptop. Also use RSA and Horizon VMWare and haven't dug into how well those apps work in Linux.
I don't need WSL but I really like it. I get to dip my toes into Linux, and enjoy using bash, running MySQL under Linux, generally find the npm/yarn experience is better.
If at this point you wonder why I don't go Mac it's mostly because I could never justify the price premium to get the hardware I want. In theory Hackintosh could fit the bill but I haven't tried it, and everything "just works" under Windows so I haven't felt the need.
Actually, running any linux software in general such as middleman or Jekyll is pretty painful on Windows- I recently had a horrible time trying to get git-crypt working for a colleague of mine who was using Windows..
There's a lot of value in being able to just run "linux" (with bash, grep, sed, awk, gcc, python) while being able to access your normal files on a Windows desktop.
You _can_ do this with VirtualBox but it's janky, slow, buggy and generally awkward.
It’s not feasible, as much as I wish it was.
In theory you can develop for Windows being on a Linux PC using a VM or cross-compiler but this isn't always practical or possible. Just have a Windows PC is more simple.
I also still need to maintain several Java projects and some tools that leverage Ruby. Using Java on Windows isn't a big deal, but the Ruby tools are aimed at Unix-ish platforms and I find it a lot easier to work with Ruby under WSL instead of messing around with native Ruby on Windows.
1. You like windows
2. You want to use software or hardware that works best with windows
Personally I like windows and I want to run Lightroom and various other software that doesn't work on linux. I also want to have a full *nix OS available and windows with wsl gives me exactly that.