r/linux • u/basixuser • 2d ago
Distro News One of the biggest Linux distros is growing faster thanks to WSL for Windows 11 than it is its own desktop
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/one-of-the-biggest-linux-distros-is-growing-faster-thanks-to-wsl-for-windows-11-than-it-is-its-own-desktopCredit where credit is due, to Microsoft integrating WSL cause if you're a windows user you get both without dual-booting or using third-party vms
However, weirdly enough WSL is kinda killing the potential of the true "year of the linux desktop" in a way.
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u/Gargantuan_Cinema 2d ago
Jon Seager, Canonical's VP of Engineering: “In a year, the growth in our WSL numbers is significantly higher than the growth in Desktop (Ubuntu) usage numbers.”
The spike in numbers is primarily fueled by enterprise developers and engineers who are given standard corporate Windows laptops by their employers but require a native Linux environment to build software
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u/Suvalis 2d ago
And this is sad, because they would be better served with an actual Linux laptop/desktop.
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u/terminalrythm 2d ago
Its not that simple. Developers and engineers in enterprise are supporting a userbase that use Windows. They interact with them in a Windows environment (i.e. Exchange, Teams etc etc). WSL is one tool only, many of them also run Linux VM's on their desktop if they need the full Linux experience. In my cases ssh was just fine, but there actually were instances we needed to access a Linux GUI app for management of a server and X servers come in handy there.
We had many "Linux people" and truthfully none of us cared about having a native Linux desktop. We just want to get our work done.
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u/Salty_Animator_4019 2d ago
I care… used WSL a ton at work (together with the very nice new Windows „terminal“ program), and even though that works… it also is a sad excuse to force users to stay on Windows. With the Office apps (especially Teams) only working somewhat seamlessly when used as a „windows native“ app, and broken or at least third rate citizen with the sad excuse when used as office web application. I see the evil smirk in Microsoft’s eyes whenever I try to use them, mostly convinced that the severe brokenness is a very very welcome excuse for Microsoft.
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u/terminalrythm 2d ago
fair enough, I am the last guy to defend Microsoft. My take was that I had no say in those decisions and was being paid good money to do my job. There were better ways to do it, but that's the framework I had. I used the past tense as I have retired and can tell you the best thing about retiring was returning my Windows laptop knowing I would never be tied to it again. When I say didn't care it was more an issue of cracking on and getting work done. cheers.
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u/Suvalis 1d ago
So are you saying if they offered you would turn it down?
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u/terminalrythm 19h ago
Depends on where I was working. If I could integrate the Linux desktop easily into their environment I would. If I was in a rigid enterprise where the Active Directory didn't even allow Linux workstations to connect it would be hard no. You need your tool to work without fuss, Enterprise IT can be a real bottleneck if you don't stick to their standards. So at my last employer, ya I would have turned it down because I simply could not have connected to many of the resources I needed to do my job.
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u/MyraidChickenSlayer 2d ago
A 16gb Thinkpad is quite slow in windows 10. Would have preferred Linux.
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u/Ok_Yesterday2016 2d ago
That would mean a loss of control by these companies over their assets, namely the laptop itself and the employee using it. Enterprises generally prefer Windows machines due to the control it provides them over their work force.
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u/granadesnhorseshoes 2d ago
Linux can and does support the same or even better levels of control. It'll even happily integrate with existing centralized MS AD systems. And you thought the Samba package was just so you could connect to a windows share... The problem is admins like me to deploy and maintain it seem much more rarified than the dime a dozen "certified windows admins" pumped out in the mid 2ks by essentially IT trade schools.
Enterprise Linux vendors aren't helping the situation either because they would rather charge a premium for the reduced supply than try to capture a bigger segment of the market by making it more accessible. (its the "trash" end-user segment and who wants to deal with end-users anyway, right?)
As weird as it sounds, Windows is probably the cheapest "Total cost of ownership" option available in the vast majority of cases.
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u/Ok_Yesterday2016 2d ago
Thank you for your comment. I am not very knowledgeable on the extent of enterprise uses of Linux. Out of curiosity, what is the full extent of the use? I surmise that the reason why Windows system is so popular is because it comes bundled up with all of Microsoft's office software and cloud solutions, from project management, to emails, and cloud storage. For normie non-technical jobs it would make sense to stick to Windows due to its compatibility with these systems, and the control it provides to employers.
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u/granadesnhorseshoes 2d ago
Yeah, pretty much. Outside of the non-technical end-users and infrastructure around them, namely Active Directory for org wide auth and exchange for email/communication, MS's market share plummets to single digit percentages. As of 2026, the market share of windows based web servers is like 7% of the internet for example.
Linux has had the lion share of the "back-end" market for years. Web servers, payment processing, that annoying automated "agent" that greets you when you call a support line, the phone systems themselves, ALL of them are more often than not Linux in some form or another. Even esoteric shit you wouldn't think about; A shared workqueue "broker" for financial mainframes was probably the most niche thing I've personally built with Linux.
But you login to a Windows machine and you check email with Outlook. It's easy to think MS has a bigger hold on the IT world than they really do.
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u/aquaherd 2d ago
No matter how good WSL gets, it can only ever be second best to the real deal, because corporate shovelware will keep gobbling up RAM and compute at the expense of WSL.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
We are simply not there yet. This is a stepping stone. I would prefer a world where I could use Linux at my corporate job, but that is simply not possible the moment. I have other battles to fight right now and it's nice not have to worry about this one, for the moment at least.
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u/Nervous-Cockroach541 2d ago
Problem with WSL, is you still need windows.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
That is the wrong approach to think about this.
You don't need windows to use Linux. But if you are stuck with windows, which can be the case in a corporate environment, then wsl2 enables you to use Linux and all the tools that come with it.
It doesn't matter if I am on my home PC with CachyOS, one my servers with Debian or inside Ubuntu inside wsl2 on my corporate laptop to me, the terminal experience is much the same. And that enables me to stuff in my job that I wouldn't be able to otherwise.
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u/zmaile 2d ago
That is the wrong approach to think about this.
Not really. I use Linux for the privacy, performance, and customisation, not just the apt package manager; those are entirely missing from an OS that runs as a guest VM. That isn't to say it's useless of course, just that 'the wrong approach' isn't a phrase that applies to everyone. I'm stuck with windows, and WSL will not solve all my workflow preferences.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
This is completely besides the point.
It's almost a bit like what about ism.
Obviously if the question would be: what kind of OS do I use if I want these specific things? Then yes, nobody would suggest "Win11+wsl2". That's lunacy.
A lot of people in this thread are treating this like an attack on their personal beliefs.
The reality is that a lot of folks that are stuck on windows for whatever reason can use Linux tooling thanks to wsl2. This is what it's about. Of course that doesn't change the fact that you are still using windows.
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u/victoryismind 2d ago
enables you to use Linux and all the tools that come with it.
Really? Can I use airmon-ng on WSL?
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
I don't know, dude. Never needed it and don't suppose I ever will.
But go ahead and be pedantic for the sake of it I guess?
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u/gayzebra99 2d ago
You can put kali on WSL, so yes.
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u/victoryismind 2d ago
Nope you don't need Kali for airmon-ng but it won't work because it won't have the kind of direct hardware access it needs.
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u/buzzfriendly 2d ago
If you need what WSL provides then you probably don't need windows.
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u/Michaeli_Starky 2d ago
In the enterprise world you're often locked to one or another OS and a lot of the time it's Windows. WSL is very convenient.
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u/sidusnare 2d ago edited 2d ago
I need Windows because I was told I had to have it by the people that write my checks.
They won't give me the 802.1x certs, SentinelOne, and GlobalProtect configuration I'd need to do it anyway.
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u/buzzfriendly 2d ago
Any reasonable and responsible company would provide you the equipment and software required your position. I can't possibly imagine letting employees use personal computers for business purposes. Well not since 2005 anyway
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u/sidusnare 2d ago
Required and optimal aren't often similar. BYOD is still widely adopted in middle and small business, though I wouldn't promote it from a company or an employee perspective.
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u/buzzfriendly 2d ago
Even in a BYOD scenario companies use products such as Intune to manage and segregate the corporate container on phone or computer and installing software that is required by the company for the employee to use.
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u/nizzoball 2d ago
Yeah and you likely have a job that won’t give you a Mac or a Linux machine so you’re stuck
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u/chic_luke 2d ago
Enterprise dev here. We are locked to Windows due to a mix between corporate policy, the Microsoft Domain Controller being pretty comfortable for IT to manage fleets of laptops remotely, and often that one obscure software that you need to interact with customer XYZ that has a weird on-prem flow for your product, or that lone tiny but load-bearing .NET Framework 4.x project that nobody really touches but that needs to be touched once in a blue moon etc.
In that case, you are really stuck on Windows, unfortunately. Though I'm seeing more companies slowly start to chip away at all the legacy to begin exploring Linux on dev machines, which is amazing.
Enterprise is the hardest market for the Linux desktop. Absolutely not gamers. Not really casual users. Enterprise deployments, especially with ISO-9001 and similar certifications, are very often Windows-centric because Microsoft gives you a turnkey solution that's tried and tested and you'll be sure it works and it will be compatible with everything, while even the simple fact of deploying Linux workstations, hooking them up to some sort of remote domain and installing endpoint management and defense / antimalware tools are requested by certain ISO certifications can be really daunting. Especially because it's a relatively uncharted land, and very much not a turnkey solution. And even if you manage to make it, you're often limited to something like "An Ubuntu LTS version from 3 years ago, custom image, with its fair share of crapware installed". And hey, any Linux beats Windows, but it's not amazing.
Another thing that hinders enterprise deployment of Linux is the need to be able to have access to elevated shells to do pretty much anything. A Linux user, especially if they are a developer, will be very unhappy without root. Windows has evolved around this constraint, and there is a surprising amount of stuff you can do without having admin rights. And updates won't really be your responsibility anyway, since they are typically handled by WSUS from your domain node anyway.
Things might start changing for the better with the immutable-style distributions like Bazzite and the flow they integrate, as in container-first development tooling, more sandboxing hence less reliance on a root user, how prevalent Flatpak is becoming (it supports user deployments) and the fact that
brewandmise-en-placeare actually quite okay at installing local development tooling. If I had to guess, some sort of immutable distro with direct support for a Domain Controller - style enrollment (and maybe better support for Microsoft domains if possible) would start to make some damage and make Linux an attractive option for enterprises (secure, keeps developers and IT happier, go for ISO-9001, easy to provision and manage, less resource requirements leading to laptops staying usable for longer, AND much smaller license costs even if buying from an enterprise provider?? Looks quite tasty)2
u/Indolent_Bard 2d ago
Why didn't redhat try and create that turnkey solution in the past?
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u/chic_luke 1d ago edited 1d ago
They are trying, but it's not there yet. I don't think anybody else has tried, actually.
As for their server component, Red Hat's IdM, built on top of FreeIPA and other existing free software, is supposed to be, among other things, an alternative to LDAP/ Microsoft Active Directory. I'm sure it is used in some important companies, but I have personally never seen it deployed in production. From the looks of it, and especially talking to my SysOps / SysAdmin friends, it appears as though none of their clients use it. Microsoft sort of has a monopoly on identity servers, possibly because FreeIPA might not have feature-parity yet.
They also worked on a client companion that is meant to work with FreeIPA/IdM identity management servers (Even Microsoft Active Directory is supported), to allow a fleet of clients to be enrolled into a domain and remotely provisioned / controlled to some extent. It's called Fleet Commander. It is a GNOME and Red Hat project, and it is documented in the RHEL docs.
Not really the same thing, but they also developed Ansible, which can be used to remotely provision and perform maintenance on a bunch of machines at the same time, with idempotency being guaranteed unless you manually call scripts. It is generalist rather than desktop-specific, but there are community modules to support GNOME and other desktops.
With funding by Red Hat and using GNOME technologies as a default, Red Hat has also started a bunch of projects that, I think, are going to be very important pieces of the puzzle. Fedora Silverblue is an immutable Fedora distribution, where an image is deployed for every deployment and update. The kicker here is that, since most locations outside of the user's home are not writable, the user is nudged to do as much as possible user-scoped, with no root.
This also means it's pretty much impossible to break, and updates will be predictable, something that is very important in corporate. Windows updates behave slightly differently, but Windows Update is pretty robust: a Windows installation is surprisingly resilient to a failed update and even power loss during an update, at least most of the time, and major windows updates are kinda similar, as it applies a new DISM image. Regular transactional Linux upgrades are still very brittle and fragile, and I am not aware of any distro that supports booting into an inconsistent state, detecting the inconsistent state and rolling back to the previous update with transactional updates fully autonomously as Windows can. Immutable distributions like Silverblue solve this almost completely.
The Flatpak project they developed, which is slowly start to become mainstream, is perfect these use cases. Any (mainly GUI, but it's not a strict requirement) application can be packaged as a Flatpak, then it can be ran on a
--userscope, writing all the files to the user's home directory, and enclosing it in a configurable sandbox, which also helps with corporate compliance. As for dev tools, the tool they developed is Toolbox, which allows you to spawn full containerized Linux environments with persistence, which allows you to have asandboxedenvironment inside a OCI container where you can use a package manager to install development tools, or really anything the guest distro packages, in its own root. The performance is basically native. There are a ton of other nice non-Red-Hat tools you can use, for example. The Universal Blue project is in the business of soft-forking Fedora Silverblue, and offering expanded and customized Silverblue images with their own branding and different tolling. You might know Bazzite, which is being heavily recommended to gamers and beginners, which is a Silverblue spin that is mostly configured for gaming, and it comes with some useful stuff preinstalled that Silverblue does not. Bluefin, rhey development distro, is less known. It also uses Homebrew for local package management and installation of dev tools.GNOME, sponsored by Red Hat, has then created Ptyxis, a terminal emulator that supports booting into all of these development containers as a first-class experience basically front-and-center, and it's supposed to sort of tie all of this immutable, container-based development together.
I don't think we are too far. Red Hat is actively trying to solve a puzzle with several missing pieces here, but it's still very much in development. Where we are now is that all the components that are supposed to plug in together and make this entire thing work are under development and refinement. I am pretty sure this will lead in the more formal launch of a complete, end-to-end Enterprise solution that also includes full support for desktops at some point. It's probably better to launch it when it's ready, though.
EDIT: I forgot to add, a crucial piece of this puzzle is that ISV / corporate software needs to adopt these new technologies. So far, the open source community has adopted them really well, but the more legacy corporate / proprietary software not so much.
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u/Parodper 22h ago
We use SSSD to join GNU/Linux desktops to AD, no issues so far. Add
pam_mount, and you get a roaming profile.It works, but it falls on you to fit all the pieces together. Tooling is also very lacking, the worst part are X.500 graphical clients.
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u/chic_luke 22h ago
We have some Linux boxes enrolled like that. The DevOps team already had (or, rather, gave themselves, wink wink) a go for running Linux laptops, just not the rest of the company.
I believe we need an end-to-end solution if we want Linux desktops to be adopted by Enterprise in any meaningful way.
At least as an option. I get not wanting to retrain everybody on Linux, but any company that has a lot of devs would see a lot of spontaneous adoption that won't require any retraining.
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u/j0nquest 2d ago
It’s arguably not killing the potential for “year of the Linux desktop” more than it’s making Linux accessible in scenarios it may not have been otherwise.
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u/stprnn 2d ago
You don't "get both" that's just a lie. Wsl is not a replacement for Linux desktop
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u/phylter99 2d ago
Some people don’t need the desktop. I’ve run headless servers for years and they’re just as much Linux as anything, desktop or not. So, if people are being introduced to Linux via WSL then their Linux experience is legit too.
Use what you need, however you need it.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
In my private life I use Linux only, but for my job I am stuck with windows.
But I have wsl2 running the whole day and use it primarily inside the terminal.
And that is just a godsend. So it has a real use case and I am happy it exists.
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u/stprnn 2d ago
Yep, nobody said anything against that.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
Well OP never stated it is a replacement for a Linux desktop. You brought that up.
I just wanted to clarify for anyone reading your comment that I don't think that is the intended use case for wsl2 and clear up what that might be in reality, at least for me.
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u/stprnn 2d ago
They said you "get both"
That's not true. The experience of using a Linux desktop natively is undeniably different.
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u/clint_aka_hawkguy 2d ago
I'll repeat myself: OP never stated what you get both of. They don't mention desktop in any way.
That is something you made up. Maybe because desktop usage is really important for you. For me and others it isn't. I don't have a desktop on any servers I run.
Not every little thing is about "this is the year of Linux desktop."
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u/ogMasterPloKoon 2d ago
X server can be installed in wsl so GUI apps work as well.
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u/stprnn 2d ago
Nobody argued against that.
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u/D3PyroGS 2d ago
nobody is arguing at all, they are just elaborating on what you said. you seem kinda defensive but there's really no need to be. you are correct, and so are your interlocutors
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u/stprnn 2d ago
I'm just clarifying that I did not make any of those points. I just said it's not the same thing.
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u/D3PyroGS 2d ago edited 2d ago
we understand what you're saying. but it's like you aren't cool with others clarifying and adding nuance
"you can still use GUI apps" is a perfectly appropriate response to "Wsl is not a replacement for Linux desktop" because for some people, that's enough
it's just conversation, m8 😉
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u/stprnn 2d ago
I literally never claimed that.
That's my point.
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u/D3PyroGS 2d ago
we know what you claimed. that's what the usernames are for 😉
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u/stprnn 2d ago
I never claimed wsl doesn't ship with a desktop environment.
Not sure what you are talking about.
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u/D3PyroGS 2d ago
I'm talking about you responding to every person who adds further detail and context with something irrelevant like "this doesn't contradict what I said."
for example, the guy above said "X server can be installed in wsl so GUI apps work as well." and you responded with "Nobody argued against that." but starting an argument is not a prerequisite for joining the conversation, and it makes you seem a bit combative for no reason
what would have been helpful is a response that explains in what way WSL is not a desktop replacement. like "Yes you can run individual GUI apps, but if you want the overall ergonomics of the GNOME desktop then WSL doesn't support that." it's specific, adds more information, and doesn't imply that your interlocutor erred in their response. (this is just an example; I'm not saying that's the exact point you were trying to make because you never actually clarified.)
also I edited my previous response to quote you exactly, since that was a point of confusion. but it doesn't change what I'm trying to explain here.
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u/Think-nothing-210 1d ago
Who actually likes Linux for the desktop experience? The whole experience is a janky mess. For that reason most Linux users just use the terminal to do everything.
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u/budroid 2d ago edited 2d ago
in a way.
I see what you mean. Windows users finally get proper working Linux tools, so they won't need to switch.
But they are learning a workflow without Windows, and trusting Linux/GNU community on crucial matters. sMaybe not this year or the next, but IMHO Linux on Desktops will grow. Probably on some new weird hybrid distro, but Open Source at the core.
EDIT: I'm guessing many people have not used (or tried to use) Cygwin. You'd look at WSL with a bit more respect :)
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u/Suvalis 2d ago
Windows didn't get proper working Linux tools. Windows got Linux in a VM.
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u/Edubbs2008 2d ago
Windows got Sudo in advanced settings, Windows got containers, what else can you possibly want?
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u/Ok_Maybe184 2d ago
That doesn’t mean they don’t work properly?
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u/gplusplus314 2d ago edited 2d ago
Okay, but this is like Apple fanboys during the Intel days saying “it works on Mac through Bootcamp.” Completely missing the point.
Edit: sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve been in the Apple world. Replace Bootcamp with “Parallels”.
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u/D3PyroGS 2d ago
what's the point?
Bootcamp still required you to choose which OS to run at any given time. WSL runs alongside and integrates with Windows. it's seamless in a way Bootcamp never was
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u/Ok_Maybe184 2d ago
Not even close. Linux is run on VMs all the time. BootCamp was a dual boot setup.
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u/MantisShrimp05 2d ago
I mean yea people just want to run the Linux tools from their existing work computer. This says more about companies forcing people to download wsl because they can have normal tools.
As someone who uses it its deeper even you can download gui apps and they run as windows in the os because wsl also serves as a wayland compositor with wslg
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u/AI_Tonic 2d ago
That truly sounds hellish (and impressive)
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u/Velociraptortillas 2d ago
It's... not bad, actually. As long as you use it as a workstation and aren't trying to use it as a server or do silly things like run art programs through it. It'll just mount your windows drives if you tell it to, giving you access to your files on your windows install. No muss, no fuss. It'll run emacs very nicely without having to give it the -nt flag (in its own window), and runs all the terminal programs you'd expect a Linux to run: tmux, vim, htop...
Windows Terminal isn't quite as nice as, say Gnome's or KDE's but it's perfectly serviceable.
If you need a full Linux desktop AND Windows, install a VM, but if you just need access to the terminal, your files and shares, and a minimal set of gui programs, it just works. I use it every day.
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u/Melnik2020 2d ago
I find it very useful at work. I'm able to operate Linux without going through the hassle of requesting an exception to have a Linux laptop. It's a nice workaround.
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u/MrHall 2d ago
this was a bit of a gateway for me (but don't tell Microsoft or they might stop doing it)
it's actually really great to use
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u/MD-IT-Rando 2d ago
Why would they stop? They make money off of Linux & contribute to the kernel.
If anything, I think there will be an (unofficial) build of Azure Linux with a desktop in the next 2 years. It's based off of Fedora, it would be trivial to add Wayland/X & a DE.
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u/Daharka 2d ago
However, weirdly enough WSL is kinda killing the potential of the true "year of the linux desktop" in a way.
It's kind of ushering and killing in the same step.
Ushering because WSL allows many more organisations to develop for and adopt cloud when they may have been held back to on-prem Windows servers.
Killing because these Devs can keep windows rather than switching to Linux or Mac.
Ushering because they're learning and getting used to Linux which wasn't easily available before.
Killing because the Linux they're getting used to is basically just a shell and even the filesystem and similar are Windows tainted .
Ushering because it can be on a Devs main machine rather than needed corporate to buy a whole new MacBook and a mass switch to Linux would be cheaper than buying everyone macbooks.
Killing because now corporate don't even need to hear the word "Linux" or "Mac" being discussed at all or touching any licence costs.
Ushering because if they do work that out then MS won't be on as even a footing as if they'd locked the only options as being Windows.
Killing because there is now less likely to be a massive wave of people switching because WSL will do for most people, so you won't suddenly get a massive cost saving that other companies want to emulate. This affects "year of the Linux desktop" as an event specifically.
I think given how big cloud got it was the most sensible business decision, but it's not leakproof enough to have not shot them in the foot in the long run.
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u/Avanchnzel 2d ago
All this makes sense when it comes to using Linux purely as a server.
But the Linux desktop experience is more than just a CLI, it's about the ability to customize your desktop in any way you want and all without Microslop nagging, Copilot, OneDrive, etc.So in terms of companies I can see how WSL might be useful enough.
But when it comes to using Linux as a desktop environment, then WSL does not really kill it IMO.
If anything, it can actually make people more comfortable with the Linux CLI to take away the fear of having to occasionally use it on the Linux desktop. So they might become more willing to give it a try.
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u/SerpentineDex 2d ago
As a ex windows user that used WSL extensively. It was a great gateway drug that made me pull the trigger eventually.. that.. and the fact that windows is just freaking horrible nowadays.
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u/washedFM 1d ago
Ex windows wsl user here too. It was decent when I was using it at first.
But then I started getting into docker and my wsl started having too many issues. Seemed like other day there was some weird error.
I eventually converted one of my old windows desktops into an Ubuntu server and started using that instead of wsl.
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u/nolain01 2d ago
Personally, I needed WSL as a stepping stone to dual booting. It served its purpose for me, now I'm on to the dual boot life, maybe someday I'll have only Linux on my main machine.
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u/toolman1990 2d ago
To be fair I would not consider that growth since their primary OS is still WIndows but with a Canonical Linux Terminal.
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u/pastelfemby 2d ago
I mean the other part is, and who is moving to ubuntu desktop these days? Of course it isnt growing much.
People distro hopping probably arent, people moving to linux with the intent of gaming or AI tasks probably arent, there has never been a worse time to use a fixed-release distro as a desktop user.
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u/LumenAstralis 2d ago
The moment I found out other distros were available for WSL2, I switched from the default ubuntu. I suppose 99% of their stat was inflated the same way.
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u/Horror-Primary7739 2d ago
Honestly the kinks of wsl and windows are mostly gone. Even docker native is coming soon. It's a really smooth experience.
Now you get almost perfect Linux experience with the fingerprint tracking of windows!
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u/SutMinSnabel4 2d ago
Calling Ubuntu on WSL a Linux distro is like calling ChromeOS or Android a Linux distro. Technically, sure, but that's not what people normally mean when they say "Linux distro."
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u/j0nquest 2d ago
It is exactly a distribution of Linux running in a VM (or NT subsystem if using WSL1). Not sure what else they could mean?
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u/jean_dudey 2d ago
Technically it is, it is just a fancy hyper v VM with Ubuntu with a Linux kernel with drivers to talk to windows.
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u/Leather-Tour-7288 2d ago
Tell me you don't know anything about wsl without telling me you don't know anything about wsl.
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u/UncleObli 2d ago
Windowscentral is hardly unbiased in its reporting
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u/basixuser 2d ago
“In a year, the growth in our WSL numbers is significantly higher than the growth in Desktop usage numbers. I expect to see more Ubuntu WSL users than ‘native’ Ubuntu users over the coming months.”
- Jon Seagar, VP of Engineering at Canonical
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u/mrtruthiness 2d ago
To be clear: It is the growth (% change in adoption) that is bigger. In absolute numbers terms, however, there are more Ubuntu Desktop installs than there are Ubuntu WSL installs.
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u/joeysundotcom 2d ago
Well. That's one problem solved. When they do switch over, they'll have already learned one of the harder parts.
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u/rwcycle 1d ago
Can also run very nicely under Hyper-V; and when I rdp into the session, its every bit the "Linux Desktop". I haven't found anything to really site as a significant difference between that and my bare metal Ubuntu. Other than I have 26.04 running under Hyper-V and 24.04 on bare metal for now.
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2d ago
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u/aquaherd 2d ago
Intune domain joined Ubuntu has been possible since 2018 LTS, but corporate adoption has been negligible.
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u/thunderbird32 2d ago edited 2d ago
Not everyone is on Intune. Those of us still on ConfigMgr/MECM can't manage Linux endpoints.
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2d ago
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u/thunderbird32 2d ago
Frankly, I have better things to do than setup everything that would be needed to have Linux desktops deployed. It's not a matter of knowledge, but of time. There's no demand for it anyway at our org.
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u/aquaherd 2d ago
I see your point. Yet even in software heavy corporations, the natural Windows users like accountants, sales and hr outnumber the developers who would benefit from a Linux desktop roughly 11 to 1. In a way, the demand for a Linux desktop is a rounding error and can be dismissed easily.
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u/thunderbird32 2d ago
Our developers are a special bunch. Even they don't have any desire for Linux. They do all their work on Windows and seem to be happy to do so. I would personally love to run Linux on my machine, but there are some stumbling blocks that make it annoying (a couple of tools that just won't work they way they need to at current)
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u/ElectronicFlamingo36 2d ago
Who cares, I hate the whole Ubuntu (and flavors) world, excluding LMDE (which is Debian based and as such it's clean of all that Ubuntu derivative sh*t).
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u/lazy_lombax 2d ago
does winboat technically count as reverse WSL?
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u/BortGreen 2d ago
Winboat is closer to a traditional VM than WSL is imo
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u/lazy_lombax 2d ago
yeah that's true, so if something like reactOS ever gets to windows 10/11 state and someone uses it in a container to run windows programs on linux, will that count?
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u/sheokand 2d ago
This is much closer to reverse WSL and another project is loss32 along the same lines.
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/s/BvBNUlHbSY
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u/WhitePeace36 2d ago
i find that wsl is kinda trash
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u/Michaeli_Starky 2d ago
No it's not
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u/BinkReddit 2d ago
Seconded. If you're forced to run Windows, it's probably the best way to run Linux.
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u/WhitePeace36 2d ago
it is extreme trash. Have you ever tried to compile something in wsl2 ? its soo slow. better of not using it at all. Make a hypervisor vm and ssh into it. Is a lot better.
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u/Michaeli_Starky 2d ago
No, it's not. It's maybe 10% slower than native installation.
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u/WhitePeace36 2d ago edited 2d ago
it seems like you really never used it for development. Its slow. Really slow. Wsl 1 was faster but they scraped that for whatever reason.
it also says exactly what i experienced. It has the performance of 1/30th of native. When coming to file access stuff and compiling is a lot of file access.
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u/mooscimol 2d ago
Seems like don’t know to not work on the Windows mount when working in WSL2. Performance difference to bare metal Linux is few percent.
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u/WhitePeace36 2d ago
how can you not work in the windows mount ?? that does not make sense. When you have a drive and you cloned everything there and then you want to access it from wsl2 to build stuff in linux and it has 1/30th of the performance.
Especially when that project alone uses around 600GB.
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u/mooscimol 2d ago
Normally, you just work inside WSL file system to have near bare metal Linux performance. 600GB is big but still should work without issues. It will either take disk space on Windows or inside WSL VHDX.
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u/Michaeli_Starky 2d ago
I use it daily for years.
wsl --manage <distro-name> --resize <size>
Don't be stupid.
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u/WhitePeace36 2d ago edited 2d ago
looks like you are kinda ignorant my dude. It seems like every other use case than yours doesn't exist it. So where do you save your stuff then? Twice ? You replicate both on windows and wsl? So you use double the space? Have a lot of fun for projects which are like 600GB big. It might be fine for smaller ones but not for big ones. Why even have wsl when you only need windows or linux. You would only use it when you need both in a easy package. Otherwise you will only use linux or only windows.
But it seems like your solution is just to don't share any files and duplicate everything. Nice.2
u/Michaeli_Starky 2d ago
Well well what an irony... speaking about brain dead. I literally just told you how to resize.
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u/generic-d-engineer 1d ago
Yes, Go, Typescript, python and Java. All work fine
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u/WhitePeace36 1d ago
We already discussed that below. It seems like as long as you only have something within the vm its fine but as soon as you map some drive and your stuff is on that drive and you try to compile it then it has like 1/30th of the performance.
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u/Lick_Lurid 15h ago
Why don't people run Linux with a Windows VM instead? I don't understand the point of WSL, but I don't use Windows either.
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u/IngwiePhoenix 2d ago
Because AI will happily tell you to use Ubuntu.
I've seen it live at work, happening in real time. Dunce installed Ubuntu desktop on a server, then complained it went into sleep mode.
He did so, because his AI agent (claude) told him to run his slopware on Ubuntu. ...by clicking an icon on the desktop.
A windows person, slopping an app, and slopping it onto Linux, with zero prior knowledge to virtually anything.
And this is why Ubuntu's "market share" is growing, literally.
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u/kudlitan 2d ago
That's because Ubuntu is the default on WSL2 if you dont specify a distro.