What Can BASH on Windows Do?

stacksofplates

I also do ctrl+d every time I'm using the cli on Windows, and I look like an idiot. Never fails.

I noticed that image says ctrl+d is delete. It's always logout for me, not sure what they're talking about. It is old though.

Romo

I believe its actually called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, all the people calling it Bash on Windows are wrong and giving a wrong meaning for many. Bash doesn't run on Windows ala Cygwin, bash is running on a ubuntu image that talks to WLS

https://i.imgur.com/YYzbt5A.png

Here is a video of some of the things you can do with it.

Youtube Video

As the video shows, it is mainly targetted at developers.

scottalanmiller

@Romo said:

I believe its actually called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, all the people calling it Bash on Windows are wrong and giving a wrong meaning for many. Bash doesn't run on Windows ala Cygwin, bash is running on a ubuntu image that talks to WLS

Almost. BASH runs on the WLS which is sometimes confusingly called "Ubuntu on Windows" as a product name. You have to be VERY careful, this is where brilliant marketing people come in.... it's NAME is "Ubuntu on Windows" but there is no Linux kernel so it is neither Linux nor Ubuntu running, ever. There is no Ubuntu running on Windows, just something with a name meant to imply that.

Romo

@scottalanmiller, it appears to be ubuntu userspace. They are running the same Ubuntu ELF binaries only on WLS, wouldn't that allow it to be called ubuntu?

scottalanmiller

@Romo said:

@scottalanmiller, it appears to be ubuntu userspace. They are running the same Ubuntu ELF binaries only on WLS, wouldn't that allow it to be called ubuntu?

Well... define Ubuntu first. It's in no way the Ubuntu OS, not even slightly. Unless you can tell me that no one that says Ubuntu means Ubuntu Linux, then no, it's not Ubuntu.

I've never met anyone who said Ubuntu meaning something that this would qualify as.

scottalanmiller

We never, ever say that we run Windows on Linux, even though we've had WINE. WINE is an API emulation layer, but no one thinks it is Windows. But that's what is going on here.

dafyre

@scottalanmiller said:

We never, ever say that we run Windows on Linux, even though we've had WINE. WINE is an API emulation layer, but no one thinks it is Windows. But that's what is going on here.

They should have called this product LINE... Linux Is Not Emulated, lol.

scottalanmiller

@dafyre said:

@scottalanmiller said:

We never, ever say that we run Windows on Linux, even though we've had WINE. WINE is an API emulation layer, but no one thinks it is Windows. But that's what is going on here.

They should have called this product LINE... Linux Is Not Emulated, lol.

Exactly. It's interesting technology, it's an update to a subsystem that has languished and been forgotten (how many Windows "Admins" - see other thread - even know of the UNIX Subsystem for Windows which has been there for over two decades?) and will be kind of useful to developers, I guess, but is not very useful overall. It's not for production use, it's really just for desktops and it lacks all of the power and functionality that would have made it interesting.

scottalanmiller

Part of the issue is that one department is out there saying that this is only for developers and that it is crippled and useless. Then another department out there working hard giving it names to totally confuse people. Saying things like that Ubuntu is running on Windows, which is obvious BS and a total lie. Ubuntu is not the user space, that's kind of important, but that's just the icing, not the cake. The cake is a lie here.

And the Ubuntu user space includes a lot of stuff for administration, if those don't work, how can we claim that we have the full user space?

It's just a large collection of apps from Linux that will run on Windows. That's interesting, but interesting at best until they get it doing something more.

bbigford

I got my hopes up for BASH on Windows.

scottalanmiller

@BBigford said:

I got my hopes up for BASH on Windows.

Hopes.... dashed.

Me too.

bbigford

Maybe PowerShell will be available on Linux soon....

bbigford

True BASH on Windows would be like the day we were provided Internet radio. That was a pretty good day.

bbigford

I wonder if this is just some huge marketing ploy... Appearing to be more flexible, try and poach some developers. Seems like it is all smoke and mirrors though. I was skeptical that it would end up just being a terrible project, I wonder if that is what we're seeing.

Microsoft to disgruntled, mislead person over the phone: "Oh no, you CAN use BASH on Windows... I mean not technically.... Well yeah, it's terrible to use.... No, I understand it's terrible.... Yeah, we lead you on.... No, you can go f*** YOURself.... and good day to you, sir."

scottalanmiller

@BBigford said:

Maybe PowerShell will be available on Linux soon....

I've often wondered that.

scottalanmiller

@BBigford said:

I wonder if this is just some huge marketing ploy... Appearing to be more flexible, try and poach some developers. Seems like it is all smoke and mirrors though. I was skeptical that it would end up just being a terrible project, I wonder if that is what we're seeing.

That's what it looks like. They've stated that it is all about getting developers and nothing else, which is fine. But they or someone did some marketing around it that was very, very much "Windows can run Ubuntu now" which is not in alignment with their stated goals.