Timeline for answer to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL): what can't I do with the Ubuntu application for Microsoft Windows? by Liam Proven
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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24 events
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| Jan 9, 2019 at 11:55 | comment | added | Liam Proven | It took me some time to write this up in reasonable detail. A response is here: liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/61110.html I submit that it is a verifiable, objective fact that Windows is a more vulnerable OS family, due to the nature of both its design and its implementation. Additionally, it is impossible to judge this matter in terms of statistical or evidential analysis without access to parallel universes in which Windows were not a dominant OS and in which as a minority offering its vulnerability to attack was measurable compared to a dominant ecosystem of different OSes. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 18:33 | comment | added | user351871 | @LiamProven Linux is just as vulnerable as Windows, because there's only so much the OS can do to stop users from shooting themselves in the foot. You haven't answered my question of "Why do you think that you do not need antivirus on Linux?", and the response looks like something I'd see out of a Gentoo forum. Not to devolve the comment thread past it's usability anymore, but do you have verifiable evidence that Linux servers are at (conservatively) 2-3 orders of magnitude less risk? | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 14:02 | comment | added | Liam Proven | @Zymus I stand by my assertion. It is not safe to run Windows without antivirus. Even for expert users who know not to run untrusted binaries, there are exploits involving compromised WMF, help files and more. This is not true of Linux, which is far less vulnerable. Yes there are Linux trojans & exploits, mainly for Internet servers, but it is at (conservatively) 2-3 orders of magnitude less risk. It is perfectly normal & safe to run Linux workstations with no antimalware. Windows is more vulnerable, by design. It's mainly due to marketing's insistence on ease of use, but it's true. | |
| Sep 12, 2018 at 13:57 | comment | added | Liam Proven | Re the distinction between "service", "subsystem", "emulator" etc. There's a lot of disinformation being bandied around here. NT has always included "personalities", from the first version, NT 3.1 in 1993. NT came with 3: Win32, OS/2 & POSIX. The latter 2 only supported text-mode apps. The native NT API is never normally exposed: apps use a personality layer which translates it to something else. Win32 is just one of these. The POSIX layer evolved into "Services for Unix", was replaced by Interix from Softway, & now has evolved into a Linux-binary-compatible version. It's nothing new. | |
| Jul 5, 2018 at 8:50 | vote | accept | Leos313 | ||
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| Jul 4, 2018 at 8:03 | vote | accept | Leos313 | ||
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| Jul 3, 2018 at 9:13 | audit | First posts | |||
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| S Jul 3, 2018 at 5:58 | history | suggested | Bob | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
WSL is Windows **Subsystem** for Linux. It has little to do with the former Services for Unix, not even the name.
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| Jul 3, 2018 at 4:31 | comment | added | mckenzm | It's not as if they have not had subsystems before, remember the OS/2 Subsystem in NT3.51 ? Just about any curses app will run, It's a death knell for Cygwin, but yes there are limitations. If you need to break past them then VirtualBox or similar. It's why they call it bash on Windows. It can halve your configuration items not to have to maintain separate bat/cmd/ps1 scripts for AWS, say. | |
| Jul 3, 2018 at 2:11 | comment | added | Hack-R | @Bob Don't get me started on Wine! You think you have have 2 or 3 glasses without a headache, but nope. :) jk. OK, so of course they're transparent on a legal level. But the serious part of my jokey comment is that I have read in many industry and general news papers about the MS "infiltrate and destroy" strategy. This looks like part of it, like MS R. They come with a legal, intellectual, cultural trojan horse to make you think you're using the open source thing they hate but progressively capturing users in both technologically and, eventually, in the long game - in billing. | |
| Jul 3, 2018 at 1:48 | comment | added | Bob | @Hack-R There is no deception. They have been quite clear from the beginning that this is not the actual Linux kernel. It started off as "running Linux tools, especially Bash" to "running Linux environments/distributions/applications". If any of that is deceptive, so is WINE. | |
| Jul 3, 2018 at 1:44 | review | Suggested edits | |||
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| Jul 3, 2018 at 1:37 | comment | added | Bob |
@Steve You don't even need SSH. Simply export DISPLAY=:0 (or the appropriate display number depending on your X server).
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| Jul 3, 2018 at 1:28 | comment | added | Hack-R | Is there a technical term for this type of deception by Microsoft? | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 23:40 | comment | added | Caleb Jay | I have issue with this. 1. Antivirus is not "required" to run windows. The windows operating system will run without an antivirus. It also comes with an antivirus, which leads to point 2: picking random software to point at as "slowing down the OS" seems arbitrary - what if I argued that ubuntu was slower because I needed a bunch of extra software to get apps working that only work in Windows? (like a VM so I could play AAA games?). 3. You have provided no evidence to support this claim. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 23:35 | comment | added | Daniel C | "With Linux, you do not need any [antivirus], so there is less performance impact." -- Linux is not immune to viruses/malware/etc. Antivirus SW is useful in Linux both to protect yourself and to prevent bad stuff from spreading to other environments (e.g. Windows). I know it is not normally used, but that doesn't mean the threat doesn't exist. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 21:33 | comment | added | Steve | @wjandrea It is indeed possible to get a GUI (sort of). I regularly start a WSL bash shell, where I start sshd, then use Putty to forward X11 stuff which is rendered by XMing. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 20:42 | comment | added | SeligkeitIstInGott | @CaptainMan said the magic words. What I needed to know is that the "bash shell" in Windows is the same as this "Ubuntu application". Didn't know the specifics of that "shell" before. Thanks. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 18:58 | comment | added | wjandrea | @SeligkeitIstInGott It's the Ubuntu userland running on the Windows Subsystem for Linux compatibility layer. It's not an emulator, and there's no GUI. This might help: How to Install and Use the Linux Bash Shell on Windows 10 | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 18:55 | comment | added | Captain Man | @SeligkeitIstInGott the bash shell that is built-in is what they are talking about. I think Microsoft just marketed it as a bash shell because that is something people wanted, but really it's more sophisticated than just a bash shell. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 17:19 | comment | added | Eric Duminil | @SeligkeitIstInGott It's not an emulator. It's a compatibility layer, just like for Wine on Linux. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 16:50 | comment | added | SeligkeitIstInGott | It's the first time I've heard of this Ubuntu emulation app in Windows. Is this just like an alternative to enabling the now built-in (but disabled by default) bash shell in Windows 10 and something comparable to Cygwin but with an actual GUI? I'm wondering why anyone would use it. | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 15:38 | comment | added | user351871 | Why do you think that you do not need antivirus on Linux? | |
| Jul 2, 2018 at 15:11 | history | answered | Liam Proven | CC BY-SA 4.0 |