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#windows#linux#subsystem#cygwin#colinux#https#used#dll#software#unix
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Discussion (45 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
http://www.colinux.org/
https://github.com/wishstudio/flinux
flinux essentially had the architecture of WSL1, while CoLinux was more like WSL2 with a Linux kernel side-loaded.
Cygwin was technically the correct approach: native POSIX binaries on Windows rather than hacking in some foreign Linux plumbing. Since it was merely a lightweight DLL to link to (or a bunch of them), it also kept the cruft low without messing with ring 0.
However, it lacked the convenience of a CLI package manager back then, and I remember being hooked on CoLinux when I had to work on Windows.
Interix was implemented as proper NT kernel "subsystem". It was just another build target for GNU automake, for example.
(Being that Interix was a real kernel subsystem I have this fever dream idea of a text-mode "distribution" of NT running w/o any Win32 subsystem.)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interix
The problem with Cygwin as I remember it was DLL hell. You'd have applications (such as a OpenSSH port for Windows) which would include their own cygwin1.dll and then you'd have issues with different versions of said DLL.
Cygwin had less overhead which mattered in a world of limited RAM and heavy, limited swapping (x86-32, limited I/O, PATA, ...).
Those constraints also meant native applications instead of Web 2.0 NodeJS and what not. Java specifically had a bad name, and back then not even a coherent UI toolkit.
As always: two steps forward, one step back.
The single biggest problem it has is slow forking. I learned to write my scripts in pure bash as much as possible, or as a composition of streaming executables, and avoid executing an executable per line of input or similar.
I was a Cygwin user from about 1999 to 2022 or so, spent a little time on wsl2 (and it's what I still use on my laptop) but I'm fully Linux on the desktop since last year.
https://github.com/skeeto/w64devkit
Back when I was still using windows (probably XP era), I used to run colinux, it was kind of amazing, setting up something like LAMP stack on the linux side was a lot easier and then using windows editors for editing made for quite nice local dev env, I think! Could even try some of the X11 servers on windows and use a linux desktop on top of windows.
When I noticed I kept inching towards more and more unixy enviornment on the windows, I eventually switched to macOS.
Apart from the obvious hack-value, I can't quite imagine even pretend use-case, with some 486 era machine, you would be limited by memory quite quickly!
[0] http://colinux.org/
> looks inside
> virtual 8086 mode
> Because we cannot name something leading with a trademark owned by someone else.
https://xcancel.com/richturn_ms/status/1245481405947076610?s...
The "for Linux" is added because it's a subsystem for Linux applications (originally not leveraging a VM).
Microsoft also had the "Microsoft POSIX subsystem" (1993) and "Windows Services for UNIX" (1999) which were built on the "Subsystem for Unix-based Applications" (rather than "Unix-based Application Subsystem"). That chain of subsystems died at the end of Windows 8, though.
There are many reasons not to put "Linux" in front, but the naming is consistent with Microsoft's naming inconsistencies. It's not the first time they used "subsystem for" and it's not the first time they used "Windows x for y" either.
The naming is ambiguous, you could interpret the Windows subsystem for Linux as a subsystem of Linux (if it had such a thing) that runs Windows, or as a Windows subsystem for use with Linux. Swapping the order doesn't change that.
In other languages, the difference would be clearer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT_3.1#Architecture
It can work either way though.
OpenOffice XML [1] -> Office Open XML [2]
[1] https://www.openoffice.org/xml/general.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
Yes, I have weird problems. I get to look after some very weird shit.
Still got those in this part of the world sharing space with state of the art autonomous 100+ tonne robo trucks.
If you want to run your windows software in Linux, you could try Wine. Wine seems to have support for WNASPI so it's possible your software would just work. (You might have to run Wine as root I guess, to get access to the SCSI devices.)
If Wine doesn't work, Windows in QEMU with PCI passthrough to the SCSI controller might have better chances to work.
I mean it's like trying to balance a cybetruck into 4 skateboards and flunging it over a hill cool