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Red Hat Software Windows Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Comes To Windows 10 in the Form of WLinux Enterprise (betanews.com) 124

Mark Wilson writes: Earlier in the year open-source software startup Whitewater Foundry brought WLinux to the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Not content with creating the first native Linux distribution for WSL, the company has now gone a step further, targeting enterprise users with WLinux Enterprise. Whitewater Foundry says that WLinux Enterprise is the first product to support the industry-standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux.
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux Comes To Windows 10 in the Form of WLinux Enterprise

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 17, 2018 @06:56PM (#57820222)

    Oh my God job security here I come

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Oh hot stuff, would you go over my grocery list on my Linux tablet and - wait Linux tablets are unusable

    • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @07:07PM (#57820280) Journal

      Poettering announced today that from now on systemd will include an integrated kernel as part of systemd. Systemd-kernel is a mostly compatible replacement for the Linux kernel, but is a hybrid between Linux and MS DOS 2.0.

      The kernel integration was fast-tracked, having previously been scheduled to occur only after the integration of the new systemd-officesuite and renaming of systemd to Officed.

      Responding to criticism that systemd just keeps getting bigger, Poettering pointed out that some things are actually being removed. Specifically, they plan to separate out the systemd / Officed init system and make that a separate project. The newly independent init system will be called SysFkdInit.

  • by skullandbones99 ( 3478115 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @07:32PM (#57820436)

    I thought the definition of a Linux distribution was that the distribution was based on and included the Linux kernel. But WSL contains a emulation layer for the M$ kernel to implement the Linux system calls.

    Therefore, this Red Hat distribution is a WSL distribution. Sigh.

    This is M$ strategy of killing off the Linux kernel.

    • This is M$ strategy of killing off the Linux kernel.

      How so? In terms of usage of the Linux kernel the desktop is probably where it is least used, even if the entire Linux user base on the desktop were supplanted with WSL (seems pretty unlikely) I'm still not quite sure how you get to this killing off the Linux kernel.

    • Subsytem seems to imply who's the dog and who's the tail. Can we call linux and overboot or uber system for windows?

      • by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        If I understand your use of the term "overboot," then no. It doesn't boot. There's no second kernel running. Windows 10 has a subsystem that translates Linux system calls to the appropriate Windows calls. I'm sure some behaviors will be wrong, but I've been using it myself recently and have been impressed with what I've been able to do. It's not virtualization and it doesn't really feel like virtualization. It feels mainly like a way to shortcut the overhead of virtualization, mainly for doing Linux app dev

        • by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          No the subsystem is not translating Linux system calls into appropriate Windows calls. It is translating them into NT kernel calls. Just like Win32 and Win64 are translated into the NT kernel calls. As such the Linux subsystem is no different to the Win32 subsystem. You don't in Windows get to make NT kernel calls directly (unless doing major hacking) and if you are not working at Microsoft documentation on them is sparse to none existent.

          • by PCM2 ( 4486 )

            The distinction seems unnecessary. All modern Windows runs on the NT kernel.

    • This is M$ strategy of killing off the Linux kernel.

      Please, describe the exact process by which you got to this natural conclusion.

      As it is you look like you've written a completely random sentence not backed up by any ... I dare not say evidence, instead I'll say; logical thought process.

      • by DeVilla ( 4563 )

        I, personally am worried that MS will drag their feet on adding new features, introducing a drag on communities that want to try to maintain "least common denominator" compatibility. If MS doesn't have the resources and will to keep up with kernel development, they will define the least common denominator.

        I'm afraid useful features in the kernel will get ignored because WLS doesn't implement them or implements them poorly. It doesn't even have to be done maliciously.

        • You surprised me, I wasn't expecting a reasoned response given Slashdot's discourse on the subject recently but let me say why I think your concerns a slightly off base.

          WSL has no market share. It's alternative exists as running full blown Linux or Linux in a VM which is the current status quo and above all there's little effort beside some optimisations required to get a distribution working as a WSL distribution. That work is also not linked to any kernel capability. Remember WSL is a subsystem that sits

          • by DeVilla ( 4563 )

            I guess I'm assuming that WLS will be used for things like docker containers. Currently, interesting applications can depend on things like network (stack) APIs to accelerate data transfers and are affected by Linux-isms in things like the Nagle problem. I could see more use of userland filesystem implementations or attempts to make more use of kbus/dbus. All of these would be things that WLS will have to emulate reasonably.

            Linux's userland is not standing still. Glibc has been hiding a lot of that, bu

            • Yeah I could see that, but they have a loooooooooong way to go before that becomes even fiesable. But ultimately I don't see a large enough group flock to abandon the Linux kernel and run Linux userland on WSL to actually have any impact in the development decisions of Linux. I see WSL as a curiosity for single purposes built ontop of Windows. The vast majority of the Linux world does not run on such curiosities but rather as large beefier servers deployed on what is required to be rock solid and mission cr

      • Because a "distro" is running without actual Linux kernel running, how simple is that.

        • Because a "distro" is running without actual Linux kernel running, how simple is that.

          Extremely simple and therefore not at all relevant to the future development of the kernel and in effect isolates all efforts MS is doing from having any affect on the kernel itself.

  • by Stormwatch ( 703920 ) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `oarigogirdor'> on Monday December 17, 2018 @07:33PM (#57820440) Homepage

    This subsystem thing makes no sense for me. After all, the point of using Linux is to not use Windows!

    • > After all, the point of using Linux is to not use Windows!

      Not for me. The point of using Linux, for me, is to use good software. Originally, almost 20 years ago, the reason I used Linux was because I needed a network operating system that had .... At the time, Windows was very much not a network operating system. It was Personal Computer OS that until recently was called Disk Operating System to distinguish it from multi-user network operating systems. So it wasn't even an option on the list. It wasn'

      • A lot of corporations are trapped on Windows. Vendor lock-in is real.

        Are they though? Software like Office runs everywhere, maybe they wrote a few of their own Windows-only line-of-business apps but in terms of the vendor locking them in I don't they are any more locked in than if they wrote their LoB apps for macOS, it's of their own making.

        WSL makes it less urgent for them to get off Windows

        Or makes it easier to transition to Linux.

        they can run good software and legacy Windows desktop stuff together on the same machine.

        What software can they run now that they previously couldn't? Aside from pre-compiled Linux binaries of course.

        • by samdu ( 114873 )

          "Are they though?"

          Yes. Yes they are. While there are drop in-ish replacements for things like Office and other highly popular software, lots of businesses run custom software that requires Windows.

          • lots of businesses run custom software that requires Windows.

            Well they aren't really locked in then, they've decided to stick with Windows and they would just need to port their applications to some other platform. Again, feels like a problem of their own making.

            • they would just need to port their applications to some other platform.

              "They're not locked in, they just need to spend tens of thousands of dollars (at least) to switch!"

              Again, feels like a problem of their own making.

              Of course it is. That doesn't mean that it's not a real problem.

              • Or just run those applications in a VM if they don't run on Wine until they can migrate to something else. But even then that's only for some users in some businesses that actually have developed critical Windows-specific applications.

                Is this really the case for the overwhelming majority of employees at the overwhelming majority of organizations? Because Windows still has 90%+ of the desktop market, are there really that many people using Windows-specific applications for which there are no alternative? ...

                • Is this really the case for the overwhelming majority of employees at the overwhelming majority of organizations

                  Pretty much, yeah.

                  are there really that many people using Windows-specific applications for which there are no alternative?

                  It's not that there's no alternative, it's that they cut themselves off from the alternatives. You're looking at thousands of corporations (or more) that developed their solutions with no thought of portability, developing whole application systems that will only run on Micro

                  • Even if that is the case there is always going to be a cost to switching and there is also a cost saving in switching but the more important thing is do they get significant value out of switching and the answer to that seems to be an overwhelming "no".

                    It's not that they are trapped and can't switch, it's that there's no platform worth switching to. They'd just be doing the same thing they're doing now but with the application running on Linux rather than Windows (so they click on an icon that looks slightl

      • >The point of using Linux, for me, is to use good software.

        As I said, the point of using Linux is to not use a crap system. Same thing but from a different angle.

      • Did you know that even windows 3.1 could serve as network equipment... If you bought the right stack? Sure, Microsoft eventually gave away a TCP stack for windows, but for a long time you HAD to buy one. Trumpet dominated because of the low price, but it was hardly the only option. Besides the stack from chameleon, there was also TGV. TGV was a Unix shop ("Two Guys and a VAX") which went into the Windows market with a great stack, by far the fastest on Windows.

        To me, the point of Linux was to get a unixlike

        • I had Trumpet. I used it to connect to network devices and servers. For my purposes at least, that doesn't mean it *is* networking equipment. I wouldn't it as the platform to host my customers web sites.

          You put floats on a Cessna. It's still a plane, not a ship.

          • I had Trumpet. I used it to connect to network devices and servers. For my purposes at least, that doesn't mean it *is* networking equipment. I wouldn't it as the platform to host my customers web sites.

            Nor would I, especially not with Trumpet, which was slow AF. The TGV stack was ludicrously faster. It might even have been based on BSD networking code. It's been a long time since I learned the details, and I've forgotten most of them. TGV was bought by Cisco, who I think just wanted them for their Windows 3.1 stack at the time. They were then working on a high-performance network stack for Windows 9x. Knowing that Win9x was a dead end, Cisco scrapped it and turned the formerly-TGV Santa Cruz location into

    • It may surprise you that the point of using an OS is almost never the OS itself.

    • by sad_ ( 7868 )

      That is not the point of using Linux at all, but running it (well, userland anyway) on windows certainly defies the point of using Linux.

    • You could ask the same of Cygwin or msys both of which allowed you to run Unix tools on windows.

      • by DeVilla ( 4563 )

        Bingo!

        This is targeting cloud developers who won't learn Linux but have to target it.

        • No. Think again.

          It’s for people who already know the GNU tools, but want to run them on their Windows desktop instead of some toy OS.

    • I think most people are missing the point of WSL. WSL is not really about running Linux on Windows, but rather interoperability. Microsoft's strategy is not to move LINUX customers to Windows (they know they lost that fight), but rather to facilitate interoperability between the two. The main reason for WSL, is to allow for native containerization of LINUX workloads. Microsoft and RedHat already have a partnership in which they're working on container interoperability between the two. Microsoft has do
  • by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @07:39PM (#57820474)

    I don't see who would actually want to deploy this The primary reason I use Linux is for it to be a stable underpinning to either host Windows or other Linux or applications. The reasons not to use Windows is because it's basically a desktop OS. Live patching the kernel still doesn't happen on Windows and even though Linux is on more systems than ever, so the market share argument doesn't hold anymore, Windows bugs are still major issues all the time requiring reboots for even the simplest of subsystems.

    On the other hand, if I need Linux on a Workstation, it's because the Windows systems doesn't have good hardware support (eg. gpGPU, Real-Time timing support, configurable interrupts, InfiniBand, ASIC, 10/40/100G networking) so a subsystem of Windows wouldn't do me any good.

    • the key advantage is that DOS is not available on Linux.

    • The primary reason I use Linux

      Do you spend your time spinning up cloud instances on Azure? If not then you're not the target market for this. MS has a battle getting it's own cloud customers to use Windows instead of Linux. Redhat has a battle to continue to provide it's system and software to customers. This is just the combination of both in our brave new cloud enabled world.

      Me, personally, I use it because bash scripting in Windows is just as useful as it is in Linux and cygwin is a pile of dogshit in terms of integration.

      • by guruevi ( 827432 )

        Yes, I spin up Linux instances on Azure. It's clear that people want Linux to run their servers because even Microsoft can't keep Linux from their own platform. Sure it's way of getting a proprietary Linux into Windows (embrace, extend, extinguish) but it's still unnecessary for those that know what they're doing.

        • Yes, I spin up Linux instances on Azure. It's clear that people want Linux to run their servers because even Microsoft can't keep Linux from their own platform.

          Why would they want to? Microsoft aren't a "Windows" company, their cloud operations makes them a tonne of revenue and why would they care whether the paying customers are running Windows or Linux?

          Sure it's way of getting a proprietary Linux into Windows (embrace, extend, extinguish) but it's still unnecessary for those that know what they're doing.

          Embrace, extend, extinguish what exactly? Linux? If it's not compatible with Linux then it won't run Linux programs and developers won't be able to use it to develop for Linux systems, it would be a complete non-starter much less be able to gain enough adoption to supplant Linux.

        • It's clear that people want Linux

          Really? A bunch of open source zealots flocking to the MS cloud? What clearly isn't clear (he he) to you is that for the most part people don't want Linux, they don't want Windows, they don't want OSX. What they want to do is get stuff done using the software they require and the toolset and skills they possess.

          And getting past this ridiculous restriction of picking an OS to run an application is a step forward in every way.

          • Oh and I forgot to address you "embrace extend extinguish comment". Thinking that this is possible, viable, or even what they are doing with these capabilities and their market share only shows that you're good at soundbites, but lack a bit in the critical thinking part. There's multiple reasons why EEE isn't a viable strategy not possible, practical, the direction they are moving with WSL, and nor even in the interests of their business,.

      • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I haven't tested this, but I use a portable version of mobaxterm for all my bash tools on windows.
    • You can use Unix tools on a windows desktop.

      Itâ(TM)s mostly intended for dev/ops.

    • by jurtax ( 931457 )
      WSL is geared at developers and aims at giving the same kind of developing experience you'd expect working on Mac i.e. use a graphical IDE but run CLI utilities and frameworks. Also, from an IT consultant point of view I still need to run all the office stuff and other enterprisy pieces of software as well as developer tools and unixy stuff. This explains why Macs have been so successful in the developer world (go to any dev or DevOps conference). WSL closes that gap. It's not designed for much else reall
    • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      This is aimed at developers. We have our Ruby developers on mac, so they have a unix console, but we have some pseudo developers on windows.
      They use putty for ssh keys and ssh tunnels (yuk), and I've been trying to get them to use mobaxterm, which has an xserver and cygwin wrapped up in one package.

      I can see this as a good alternative. I wonder if it allows ssh tunnels and such to be addressed from inside windows?
  • by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday December 17, 2018 @07:59PM (#57820592) Homepage Journal

    If I want two OS', I use a hypervisor or a virtual machine. OS-in-OS works with Linux running in Linux or RTAI because Linux and RTAI are fast.

    Windows is slow, violently unstable, insecure, doesn't provide the necessary low level support, and was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      This is why you don't have an ideological/emotional tie in to a computer operating system. It's why I dual boot my desktop Windows & Ubuntu and why I also have a Mac, I can just choose the best tool for the job and don't have any need to make silly, false generalizations to justify using one or another because sometimes the best choice is macOS, sometimes it's Linux and sometimes it's Windows.

      https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-win10-mesa121&num=4 [phoronix.com]
      https://www.phoronix.com [phoronix.com]

    • by Anonymous Coward

      If I want two OS', I use a hypervisor or a virtual machine.

      I finally broke down and bought a 6 core ryzen after using 2 core Intel for awhile. Those are fine for day to day tasks, but once you start visualizing something, you run into slowdowns.

      The problem I wanted solved, and that the Ryzen system solved was getting windows to run sufficiently accelerated while in a VM. It turns out the key is just to run it in vmware player. That manages acceptable 3d acceleration, at least once you have a fast enough CPU. I considered IOMMU pass-through and similar, but that

    • If I want two OS', I use a hypervisor or a virtual machine.

      Why would you spin up an entire OS to use a single tool which then doesn't integrate in the OS you're likely wanting to use it?

      If spinning up a VM is faster for what you're trying to do then WSL is not the right software for the task you're trying to do. By the way when was the last time you used cygwin?

      Windows is slow, violently unstable, insecure, doesn't provide the necessary low level support, and was only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

      And yet in benchmarks Windows is just fine and outperforms Linux in many hardware related areas, if you find it unstable then maybe you did something wrong, insecure (comparatively speaking you can have that

      • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        When I'm on windows, I like to keep a linux box available via x2go, or at least ssh.
        • And how does having another box help you run a Linux tool like a bash script on Windows? This is as silly as the virtualisation argument. There are completely different use cases to having another OS available vs wanting to use a tool on your current OS that is only available on another one.

          Anyone who compares this to "a linux box" or a virtual machine is missing the point, and obviously has never used https://www.cygwin.com/ [cygwin.com]

          • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
            I use mobaxterm if I want a local console, they have a portable version that wraps cygwin, xserver, and a bunch of other stuff into a nice package. Usually, I'm manipulating data and as long as both computers have access to the same data, it's irrelevant if they are the same machine.
  • I toyed around with WLinux around its release last month. As I was messing around with it, I couldn't shut off the Richard Stallman in my brain yelling at me about Microsoft's "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" business model and the importance of open source.
    Honestly the fact that you must WLinux through the Windows Store should've been enough of a red flag, but it was half price at the time.

    As an aside- someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell Win16 execution using WINE requires

  • by Slicker ( 102588 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @11:59PM (#57821668)

    I use WSL with so-called Debian every day. It's useful for programming but very limited and not production quality. Microsoft explicitly states that WSL is not intended or recommended for production applications.

    One issue I ran into was writing to the end of an r+ open file. Explicitly placing a new record at the end by byte-number is inconsistent between openings of the file. I found that the exact positioning is a byte off via the Linux VFS verses the NTFS. If you check environment, your code can thus account for this. However, when using WSL, it's inconsistent between each time you open the file. Open once and read/write all you want. Close and re-open and it's scewed by one byte position.

    I imagine there are other issues. Overall, I am happy that WSL exists but yes, they did not name it properly. It's not Linux at all. And the Debian for it, is not Debian, either.. Also, it would be so nice if they could make Xorg work...

    If I were a Microsoft executive, I would have created Microsoft Linux a long time ago... Build in .Net and PowerShell. Give Red Hat a run for its money.

    • by PCM2 ( 4486 )

      I use WSL with so-called Debian every day. It's useful for programming but very limited and not production quality. Microsoft explicitly states that WSL is not intended or recommended for production applications.

      Well,, if you use it every day, you could argue that you are using it in production. But having used it myself, even for compiling binaries -- and I'm very impressed with what you can do -- I can't imagine the demented logic that would make anyone want to use it for something public-facing.

  • I had to install the Linux subsystem in order to run a python script that converted mercurial repos to got repos. Couldnâ(TM)t be bothered to get python working on windows because itâ(TM)s not something I use in my work normally. However thereâ(TM)s a nice script in python that does all the work of moving your mercurial repos to git and converting the history which was fairly easy to get working under Linux. Not having a native Linux system at work, the subsystem proved very useful for my
  • WLinux Enterprise is the first product to support the industry-standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux” and in the process helping Microsoft sabotage the GNU/Linux ecosystem.
    • WLinux Enterprise is the first product to support the industry-standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux” and in the process helping Microsoft sabotage the GNU/Linux ecosystem.

      How so? The draw here is that Linux binaries can run on both Windows and Linux, if that ceases to be the case then the whole feature is pointless. Why would they want to sabotage it anyway? To try and gain the ~2% of Linux marketshare on the desktop?

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