Microsoft plans Linux tools and an RTX Spark desktop for Windows developers
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Excited for the RTX Spark. I have the Framework AI 395 and the 128GB memory is nice. Docker builds and other non-AI work can easily consume tons of memory.
I know Macs go higher, but I have to use Windows or Linux. I use the DGX Spark for hosting local models.
I know Macs go higher, but I have to use Windows or Linux. I use the DGX Spark for hosting local models.
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Some interesting stuff announced once you walk past the hype. The WinGet improvements alone will be great. I've used the winget config stuff in the past to help get devs up and running fast on various projects. The WSL stuff is also going to be nice.
At the rate things are going, I'd expect to start seeing more MS stuff appearing on Linux over the next decade or so. It would not surprise me at all to see MS release a dev focused distro to go with all this other stuff.
At the rate things are going, I'd expect to start seeing more MS stuff appearing on Linux over the next decade or so. It would not surprise me at all to see MS release a dev focused distro to go with all this other stuff.
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I'm sorta liking coreutils.
On searching via winget I found the original uutils package that had flown under my radar -
It turns out that they aren’t the same – Microsoft has extended and extinguished the previous version!
It looks like the MS Version has these extra commands not in uutils.coreutils:
On searching via winget I found the original uutils package that had flown under my radar -
It turns out that they aren’t the same – Microsoft has extended and extinguished the previous version!
It looks like the MS Version has these extra commands not in uutils.coreutils:
And it lacks these:
Of the additions, find, la and du are things I type without even thinking and along with grep I'll find useful to have in general without launching WSL.
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I’m a Mac guy but also excited to see what kind of performance it brings. Competition is good for everyone, at least for customers.
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Coreutils doesn’t include grep, but hopefully more Gnu packages will be done.
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Did the Qualcomm dev kit ever actually launch? I thought it had HDMI issues and basically didn't ship.
This is the article I used as a source: https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/202...or-comprehensively-failing-to-meet-standards/
Edit: I think the article got edited
This is the article I used as a source: https://meincmagazine.com/gadgets/202...or-comprehensively-failing-to-meet-standards/
Edit: I think the article got edited
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So is MS trying to branch out into Linux because they're realizing how many people hate Win11? Honest question.
Some how I see an MS Linux browser down the road.
I might be nuts.
Some how I see an MS Linux browser down the road.
I might be nuts.
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Microsoft already publish Edge for Linux, if that's what you mean. They have for many years, now.
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i spend my day on Win11, but i'm mostly running VSCode, with several git bash terminals open and they're all running node, yarn, git, etc., talking to microservices with cross-platform back-end code. full stack web dev. and all the Office stuff is there, too.
it's like having one foot in Win11 and one in linux all the time.
so a Windows box all set up with a strong linux-ish base makes sense to me.
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Did they mention anything about Recall? They haven't taken the hint and buried it out back of the barn, have they?
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Can we just rebase Windows to Fedora, add directX and a 'Windows' gui and call it a day?
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Wish it had. Lack of desktop Windows ARM64 systems is a bit of a development and CICD problem.
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"Embrace, extend, extinguish"; I worry what designs Microsoft may have on Linux in the future, and as happy as I am that windows is getting some long overdue basics, I can't help but feel deep suspicion when MS is involved.
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Migrating architectures is an MS problem. MS and Windows more or less allow anyone and everyone release, or not update, software. And when it came to ARM support they more or less did a "let the market decide"...which went about as well as all efforts where policy is "let the market decide". The market did the cheapest and lowest effort and most profitable thing--PC hardware vendors and consumers waited out ARM to see if anyone else would jump first. Which, basically no one did. And so adoption is a rounding error.
Apple, say what you will about them, has managed 3 CPU architecture migrations expertly--by holding user and developer feet to the fire, having developer tools and outgoing-software emulation-tools production ready, and telling everyone to get-over-it the change is coming.
Ultimately an OS is just a software tool, running on a hardware tool, to let other work get done. It isn't a destination just a means. When a tool that is 100% supported (x86 Windows) costs as much as a tool that is only say 30% supported (ARM Windows, I'm making up a number here I know)--you'd need a massive carrot (e.g. battery life or compute power, etc.) to bother dealing with 70% incompatibility.
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Now I’m interested enough to see if I can replace my decades old mingw port of GNU utilities with something up to date.
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I would hesitate to describe migration as a problem exclusive to Microsoft. Apple seems to be more of an exception than a common model. It's been how many years of the year of Wayland desktop? I definitely have been hearing about it for over a decade. Android has had a half-dozen projects to get OEMs to update faster. Adobe had a heck of a time trying to convince people to switch to ActionScript 3. Firefox still has people complaining about dropping its prior plugin model.
I'm sure there's more, but these are just the ones I could come up with in a reasonable timeframe.
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I didn't mean exclusive to Microsoft generally...but the failure of ARM Windows adoption all comes back to the feet of MS. The same way Android being the mess it is is at Google's feet, almost exclusively (QCom can be dicks about drivers, but Google has the muscle to boss them around if they want). The US not using the metric system is another failure of "let the market decide".
Lots of migration efforts fail. But a lot of them go pretty smoothly and quietly--so long as there is accountability and hand holding. The ATX specification is an example on the whole, as is USB...which there's plenty of gripes to pick with say 12VHPWR or 12VO, or the fustercluck of "optional" parts of USB that make it very non standard beyond the physical port....but everyone everywhere knows what a USB port looks like, the same way you can buy a computer PSU and odds are it'll just work in your computer.
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Their designs over the past decade or so have been pretty clear. Microsoft loves Linux... as long as it runs in a virtualized container under Windows. Anything they've been doing for Linux since then was to encourage that.
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Too late, switched to Linux a few weeks ago, no reason I can find to look back at this point.
In all honestly I was a fan of WSL but never really had much of a use for it other than to install Podman on my Windows desktop. Haven't really touched it as much more than a novelty. Now that I'm on proper Linux... well, okay then. Also, I have nothing more than a passing interest in anything AI.
In all honestly I was a fan of WSL but never really had much of a use for it other than to install Podman on my Windows desktop. Haven't really touched it as much more than a novelty. Now that I'm on proper Linux... well, okay then. Also, I have nothing more than a passing interest in anything AI.
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Apple has control over all the hardware that will run their OS, and can say "every Mac we release from today on will run our chips and there is no choice in the matter." Microsoft can't do that.
To Microsoft's credit, the most recent Windows on ARM push has been a lot more successful than past attempts. They moved their entire consumer Surface line to Qualcomm chips, and got almost all the major OEMs (Dell, Lenovo, HP, etc.) to ship flagship laptops with them as well. Software compatibility is also much better these days. I see quite a few open-source or smaller projects shipping Windows ARM builds now.
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I have a similar setup, which mostly works well, but git-bash is kinda janky sometimes. I'm intrigued by coreutils in Powershell, but I'm worried I have too much Emacs/Readline muscle memory at this point. Not sure I can live without C-a, C-e, C-k, C-y, etc.
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No, Azure runs a ton of Linux and has for over a decade at least now, Microsoft has supported development of many Linux tools for even longer. over 60% of VMs and cores running in Azure are Linux flavors of some sort and Microsoft even has an Azure Linux variant based on Fedora you can deploy. This is really aimed at developers and enterprise customers that create and host things in Linux environments for a variety of reasons.
For what it's worth, the Windows 11 hate appears to be a very vocal minority compared to the overall Windows install base (Windows 11 sits at over 70% of installed Windows PCs with 10 on about 25%, the remaining ~5% are 7, XP, 8, and 8.1 in that order). Amongst all Desktop OS installs, Windows has for sure taken a hit but is still at 60-70% of worldwide depending on who is measuring. It looks like Linux desktop usage has taken a pretty even bite out of Windows and macOS usage (though there is a lot of "unknown" in all the stats which I assume is unlicensed/cracked use of Windows or macOS mostly that doesn't report the OS in an easy to verify way).
This is all to say that Microsoft isn't pushing Linux tools like this because they are worried about people on tech sites or places like Reddit complaining about Windows 11. The average person doesn't care enough to try and change, and enterprises overwhelmingly continue to use Windows for their main desktops.
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Some may not remember how unlikely that would have actually been....
Steve Ballmer (2001): "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches"
Craig Mundie, on open-source (2001): "But as history has shown, while this type of model may have a place, it isn't successful in building a mass market and making powerful, easy-to-use software broadly accessible to consumers."
Brian Valentine, (2001): ""Linux is the long-term threat against our core business. Never forget that!" "You should be smothering your accounts from every angle, and if you see Linux and/or IBM in there with it, then get all over it. Don't lose a single win to Linux."
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I'm more interested in the "distraction free" element. The idea of a stripped down dev install that doesn't take ages trawling through GPO, random regex hacks etc. to disable upsells and whatnot sounds promising.
That said it is very light on details currently and the only announcement I can find (here) just shows them... installing and using copilot-cli in WSL. Seems like a confusing thing to focus on, all I can really take away from that is that their dev config probably installed WSL for them.
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