I have to work with Win11 for work and just noticed the lil Tux man in Microsofts Explorer. Likely to connect to WSL.
Apparently now Microsoft wants people to keep using Windows in a really interesting way. By simply integrating it within their own OS!
This way, people don't have to make the super hard and complicated switch to linux, but they get to be lazy, use the preinstalled container and say "See, I use Linux too!".
While this is generally a good thing for people wanting to do things with the OS, it is also a clear sign that they want to make it feel "unneccessary" to switch to Linux, because you already have it!
WSL alone was already a smart move, but this goes one step further. This is a clever push on their side, increasing the barrier to switch even more, since now there is less of a reason to. They are making it too comfortable too stay within Microsofts walls.
On a different note: Should the general GNU/Linux community do the same? Should we integrate easier access to running Winblows apps on GNU/Linux?
Currently I still find it too much of a hastle to correctly run Winblows applications, almost always relying on Lutris, Steams proton or Bottles to do the work for me.
I think it would be a game changer to have a double click of an EXE file result in immediate automatic wine configuration for easy and direct use of the software, even if it takes a big to setup.
I might just be some fedora using pleb, but I think having quick and easy access to wine would make many people feel much more comfortable with the switch.
Having a similar system to how Winblows does it, with one container for all your .exe programs would likely be a good start (instead of creating a new C drive and whatever for every program, which seems to be what Lutris and Bottles does).
Small addition:
Now that VR works essentially perfectly on GNU/Linux, even on Wayland with Gnome and an nvidia GPU, I have now stopped dualbooting for occasional VR Chat and Beat Saber (which are VR games).
In my opition, when looking away from online games with anticheat, Microsofts Office and adobes whatever software, there is no reason to use Winblows anymore.
The amount of configuration GNU/Linux gives me is truly empowering, running any scripts I want using shortcuts being a big one for me.
Some shortcuts I use daily
Super+E -> Nautilus (obvious)
Super+W -> Firefox
Super+Y -> Youtube
Super+C -> Local LLM chat
Super+G -> Launch Godot
Generally vim navigation
Actually, Beat Saber was just an example, I mostly use VR for gamedev and Jet Island (cool VR game on Steam, maybe check it out).
Got a question though, it would be SUPER amazing to have some kind of open alternative to VR Chat. Like the Fediverse, but in realtime.
I know that this is probably harder to turn into a real thing, but IMAGINE!!!
VR Chat already has this feeling how it's all about people colaborating, and adding the power of self-hosting to the mix, alongside removing ads would be super duper amazing...
(I'll probably make a post about this on some VR community soon, this seems too interesting to keep local to this comment)
Personally WSL has always been riddled with issues for me. I mainly used it for dev things before I switched to linux entirely. Recently I came back to Windows to try some of AMDs new graphics driver features and decided to try out WSL 2. Hell, Windows fucks up so much basic shit in there, i couldnt even run 'git init' because some permission issue with drive mounting. Had to move my entire project to a separate drive just to make it work. The way Windows handles the filsystem, permissions and "cross-OS" functionality is so weird and always results in some issue, making the Linux experience feel significantly more wonky than it needs to be. Performance is also a pain, since i had to love my project to a disk that was not part of WSL reading and writing files in VS Code becomes significantly slower.
I have a pretty high end rig and even my PC runs slow when using WSL, its great to have an option for linux in windows but when a docker container or even just a VirtualBox machine performs better than WSL i have no fucking clue why youd use it.
Thanks for listening to my rant. Take it with a grain of salt ig, maybe im just incompetent and doing something very wrong.
They cannot do that. The foss community is too strong to fail, many people use GNU/Linux specifically because it's not owned by EvilCo™ and EvilHoldings™.
Most distributions and DEs already package wine in a set it and forget it configuration. Wine by default has a system wide prefix such that clicking on any exe in the file system automatically runs it on the default prefix. This way of doing things predates wsl by a long time. It is just safer and better practice to setup a new prefix for every software, specially if they are games.
Currently I still find it too much of a hastle to correctly run Winblows applications, almost always relying on Lutris, Steams proton or Bottles to do the work for me.
That's...uhhh... that's why they were made? So that your average Joe Schmoe, like myself and you, doesn't have to muddle through trying to get wine set exactly right so that the windows program functions. It sounds like you're complaining about the solution to the problem.
I guess there could be work done to just make it so if you double click on a .exe install file in just boots whatever has the best install preset, or give you a pop up with options for lutris/proton/bottles.
I actually never heard of this saying, but I just looked up. Woah, that's really a phrase they use internally, hm? Crazy.
And it does accurately describe what they try to do here. It can't really work like that, since many people use GNU/Linux specifically because it's not owned by EvilCo™. But they could probably take over some part of the server-hosting business like this. And that is a scary thought.
Imagine, they could make it super easy to deploy things by incoperating premade docker containers into their UI thingy. That's - like - real bad.
I'd argue that a lot of the other "additions" and "improvements" make any improvement in comfort irrelevant, as they are unbearable.
On a sidenote, you can set up a generic bottle in Bottles, and then set things up so that double clicking any miscellaneous .exe files just runs them in that bottle.
I don't know what you mean in your first argument. What exactly do you mean by "a lot of the other additions and improvements"? And what about them becomes unbearable?
I will have a look at the Bottles thing you brought up. Thank you for sharing that!
Should we integrate easier access to running Winblows apps on GNU/Linux?
Why "we" should bother with that when -you- can do it yourself? Linux is a "free" ""operating system"" (Not absolutely free, but at least way more "free" than Windows) -- learn the ways to do that and implement these changes yourself.
if this isnt sarcasm, it all boils down to the user experience, most people just want to use an OS and run apps that they want to run as easily and quickly as possible