SUA Deprecated In Windows 8?

An anonymous reader writes "I just tried to install Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) on Windows 8 Preview and found that it's marked as DEPRECATED: 'Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications (SUA) is a source-compatibility subsystem for compiling and running custom UNIX-based applications and scripts on a computer running Windows operating system. WARNING: SUA is deprecated starting with this release and will be completely removed in the next release. You should begin planning now to employ alternate methods for any applications, code, or usage that depend on this feature.'"

Cygwin

[paugq]

Why would someone use SUA, which is only contains very old versions of the software it bundles? There is Cygwin, which is a much much better alternative. Sometimes, even MinGW is a valid alternative because it generates a native application (though it requires some porting effort, which may be unacceptable in many cases).

Re:I feel like...

[j-pimp]

Or maybe no one is using it, and its not worth the support headaches. As others have, and will continue to suggest throughout the comments in this article, cygwin, mingwsys, UnxUtils or even a full blown unix VM are fine substitutes for SUA. Now, if you are actually using SUA in production, and this negatively effects you, that would be interesting to hear about.

Re:Metro

[Samantha Wright]

Nope. SUA is predominantly used for console applications. They've moved on from "Extend" to "Extinguish" now.

Now you have it, now you dont.

[unity100]

This is how it is with microsoft. You cant rely on ANYthing from them - they can just shut down or bail out on you (bcentral, silverlight, soon .net), and you will have to spend a lot of time and funds to go around the pain they cause you.

Re:I feel like...

[adonoman]

a full blown unix VM

That's the key right there. With virtualization software in the state that it is now, why would you run POSIX applications shoe-horned into windows, when you can have a proper POSIX system running in a VM.

This is

[malevolentjelly]

If you look at the kind of work Microsoft has put into the Linux kernel recently relating to Hyper-V...

https://lwn.net/Articles/451243/ [lwn.net]

One might gather that it's not worth the trouble for NT to ape Unix anymore. Chances are pretty good Linux is the new SUA and virtualization will be the new supported solution to this problem. I mean, why should Microsoft bother maintaining its own Unix tools when they're actively maintained elsewhere? Given the work they've done on both virtualization and linux integration I would say that there's no great conspiracy here.

Re:Metro

[tlhIngan]

Nope. SUA is predominantly used for console applications. They've moved on from "Extend" to "Extinguish" now.

It's console-only, actually. It's just something that runs on the POSIX subsystem that NT provides, but it really sucks. First, it's an ancient POSIX interface. Second, it's command line only - it's not like you get X or anything. Third, well, you lose access to Win32 (can't cross subsystems).

If's really a checkbox item, just like how NT had the ability to run OS/2 programs too.

If you're porting a Unix app to Windows, you don't use SUA. You use a Unix-to-Win32 porting library (of which Cygwin is just one), just like how Windows apps can be ported to Linux using WineLib or its commercial equivalents as well.

Hell, a Cygwin program at least can mix Win32 API calls with POSIX calls, because Cygwin maps POSIX calls to Win32.