Comment by pjmlp
3 days ago
I was already enjoying VMware Workstation and Virtual Box, depending on private vs corporate laptop, since returning to Windows as main on with Windows 7.
What WSL has brought is that now it is one thing less to install.
However what got me started with Linux back in 1995, was the not so great support of POSIX in Windows NT.
Had Microsoft kept selling Xenix, or done Windows NT POSIX subsystem property, Linux would most likely never taken off.
Quite ironic given how Bill Gates used to talk about Xenix taking over.
Microsoft gave up on Xenix/Unix when AT&T took interest in a commercial Unix and exerting influence/control over the direction of Unix.
Microsoft didn't see a profitable future in following AT&T.
See UNIX World magazine from 1985, the Bill Gates interview on the future of Xenix.
Assuming you're talking about https://archive.org/details/Unix_World_Vol02_10.pdf/page/n21... ?
1 reply →
> What WSL has brought is that now it is one thing less to install.
How? You still have to install WSL, it's not on the machine out of the box, although if it's really just about not installing things, you might use Hyper-V, that may already be installed.
Hyper-V is required for the Windows 10 security improvements regarding kernel and drivers sandboxing, and even more so on Windows 11.
Enabling WSL isn't the same as going through VMWare Workstation or Virtual Box installation, and naturally paying for the commercial features.