Ubuntu Linux now on Windows Store (for Insiders) Microsoft finally confirmed that Hell has indeed frozen over – Ubuntu is at long last available from the Windows Store. Canonical's Linux distro is now available for installation on Windows Store on Insider build 16215 and higher. Windows 10 already supports Ubuntu via the Windows Subsystem for Linux, rolled out in the …
"Have Microsoft have finally turned off Fast Startup, if you install Ubuntu? One of the problems with Microsoft Windows 10's hibernated fast startup mode, is the NTFS File System is unreadable by another OS"
This isn't a regular install of Ubuntu. This is the Ubuntu userland running under Windows with, as per other comments, a sort of Wine in reverse intercepting system calls and using Windows instead of the Linux kernel perform them. So Windows wouldn't be hibernating whilst running Ubuntu in this way.
In order to download Ubuntu installation disk, all I have to do is go to their website and start downloading it. In order to get it from Windows store, you are forced first to install Windows 10, create a Microsoft account and login to get to the app store (Google does the same with their app store and Apple doesn't even accept FOS software at all). Then you can't modify it and run your new modifications like you are free to do it with the real Linux and no, you can't pass a copy to your friends.
This is definitely not what Linux used to be, it's only a pale shadow of it and if this is the future then I'm not going any further.
Randall got there before you with the XKCD development environment.
More amusing would be to run a Linux host on a Windows host and then somehow move the original Windows into a VM on the Linux host. My guess is the universe would implode.
"What fell sorcery is this?"
This magical event is effectively Microsoft finally accepting that they cannot defeat Linux (they tried that in collaboration with the SCO Group and it didn't end well) and so they are going to have to tolerate it and work with it. If they were still taking a hardline attitude then Azure would certainly lose a lot of business and they literally cannot afford to be dogmatic on this issue any more.
Bollocks is it them accepting that they cannot beat Linux. It's Microsoft trying to stop people having dual boot systems that run Linux most of the time, with a Windows system left on it "just in case". This is another EEE strategy. It goes like this:
"Hey Linux user, you no longer have to divide up your system and dual boot it to allow you to use Linux and Windows. Just run your Linux processes on Windows. No need to partition your disk any more!"
This means that at some point in the future, when the user decides that Windows becomes too onerous Linux is actually what they want, it is a much harder task to run only Linux, and Microsoft get to count people using a Linux environment as a windows install. And once it's an accepted way of doing things, why run a Linux Kernel at all?
They already tried it some years back with GPT, where installing Windows after Linux could convert the boot record into GPT, destroying the ability to boot Linux. They also tried to suggest that Mobo manufacturers should put secure boot on all the time with only Microsoft certificates enrolled, although this was seen for what it was, and avoided.
I predict that consumer level Windows is going to suddenly get more difficult to run in a VM (it's already largely disallowed by license), to try to avoid people using Windows on Linux, making the Linux on Windows option more attractive to novice Linux users.
I spoke to a Microsoft bod at Cloud Foundry Summit a few weeks back; he told me that this Linux on Win10 is just to provide useful Linux tools for techies to make Win10 a more potent tool compared to macOS. I had also been to OpenStack Summit earlier this year, and I'd say that 85% of laptops were MacBook Pros at these open source gatherings. I'm sure Microsoft would prefer them all to be Win10 machines.
I was also surprised to hear that 1/3 of their Azure estate is running bare metal Linux, and they have a complete solution based on Cloud Foundry. He did a CF on Azure demo on his MacBook Pro, for a laugh, he did a CF Push from an app on his iPhone.
Microsoft isn't the same company it was under Balmer and Gates.
You would require a Microsoft account. Why not just download Ubuntu from the official Ubuntu website or one of the many mirror sites? Why do you need to go through a third party, especially through a scummy company's app store?
And 'Insiders': are you happy to be unpaid useful idiots for SatNad's beta testing of shoddy code? I guess some people are so masochist they truly enjoy the 'latest and greatest' from Redmond.
Neither. It's a little more like Cygwin, although you don't have to recompile any of the applications.
The Linux processes run scheduled and controlled by Windows with a translation layer to provide the kernel API to the processes.
It would be interesting to see how things like IPC, signals and process control work. And also some of the syscalls to do things like reading kernel structures (which won't exist) and also how things like KMS, Dbus, /proc and /sys, which are so important in modern Linux applications, are implemented.
I suppose this could be a reason why systemd is trying to take all these things in, so it is only necessary to subvert systemd to intercept many things. Is Lennart being paid by MS as well as RedHat.
@trog-oz: The first basically says "good", the second "could be better" and the third, the most telling "won't install".
So for you, the most telling review is from the person who hasn't actually installed it? Can you explain the logic in that?
Also interestingly, on the PC supplied to me at work, W10 x64, the store tells me "This app does not work on your device."
Not so interesting if you actually read the system requirements on the App Store:
System Requirements
Minimum
OS Windows 10 version 16190.0 or higher required
Architecture x64
You are running 16190.0, enrolled in the Windows Insider program and signed into your Microsoft account, aren't you?
But at least it gives more exposure to Linux. I know two of my friends kids will be all over this as it gives them a way to tinker with Linux more readily without annoying their windows obsessed dads until they get their own PCs. Both currently use live linux CDs to mess about.
I find the whole idea of Linux-on-Windows 10 truly odd by Microsoft. It can only be another of their traditional Embrace, Extend, Extinguish missions they wheel out to destroy any threat they perceive to their continued dominance. If MS really wanted parity for Windows applications and tools, rather than to destroy Linux, then why wouldn't they just write some of these software applications and tools that they say are currently missing from the Windows world instead of integrating/emulating a rival OS?
MS must have watched Android overtake Windows as most used OS for using the internet with dread, fearing it could/would turn their primary monopoly into an irrelevance. Linux certainly is a threat to Microsoft right now, what with Linux being streets ahead of their flagship Windows 10 OS. A fellow commentard hit the nail on the head when they suggested that Windows 10 was a pale imitation of Android rather than the full-fat OS it used to be, which besides there's more fragmentation and more adverts on Windows 10, is exactly what Windows appears to be these days.
Android uses the Linux kernel so MS can't currently slurp user data or establish any customer lock-in using it, so I can't help wondering if MS see Linux and emulating the Linux kernel as a way for them to one day finally infiltrate the mobile OS world with their bastardised hybrid proprietary/open source Linux-on-Windows 10 perhaps positioned as a drop-in replacement for Android with its Linux kernel? Obviously it is an insane thought, but MS aren't known for sensible ideas and all their other mobile efforts have failed spectacularly.
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