Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by hdhzy on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:17PM (#14093699)

Yes, but names starting with a trademark are a no-no. See [0] (bitcrazed works on WSL) and [1]. Also IANAL.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13697918

[1]: https://www.andreas-jung.com/contents/dont-use-docker-in-git...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by mustpax on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @09:36PM (#14094085)

In that case Windows Linux Subsystem seems like a good compromise.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by criddell on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @09:37AM (#14097504)

Shouldn't that be Windows' Linux Subsystem?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by throwaway91111 on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @10:22PM (#14094228)

It's never going to happen.

:(

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by dheera on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:07PM (#14094417)

How about "Windex"? Oh wait ...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by squarefoot on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @04:25AM (#14095802)

And sometimes even parts of a trademark can be risky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by Someone1234 on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @10:30AM (#14098006)

Unclear what you think that proves. Microsoft paid $20m to buy their trademark and they changed their name.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by squarefoot on Thursday April 13, 2017 @04:59AM (#14105296)

Yes, it went well for Linspire, still it attracted a lawsuit, and the reason they didn'tlose wasn't because Lindows is different from Windows but because "windows" was a generic term already used as such by Microsoft itself.

I wonder what would have happened if the MS product was called say WinOS and the other one LinOS, where none of the terms are common words so that similarity would be the only matter.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by greglindahl on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:20PM (#14094474)

I thought that both "Windows" and "Linux" were trademarks?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by lmitchell on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:51PM (#14094606)

Presumably Microsoft is allowed to use Windows wherever they please ;)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by simonh on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @07:37AM (#14096672)

Since they are saying it is 'for Linux' rather than it is Linux, I suppose they are probably ok, although the system doesn't contain or even work with any parts of Linux itself in any way.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by dragonwriter on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @07:49PM (#14093538)

It's a subsystem of Windows (hence Windows Subsystem). And, among all Windows Subsystems, it's the one for Linux, hence Windows Subsystem for Linux.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by EpicEng on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @09:54PM (#14094141)

Yeah it's the 'for' in there that makes it wrong. It's not 'for' Linux, it's for Windows. I know what it is and I _still_ think of it backwards every time I read it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by WorldMaker on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @05:04PM (#14101734)

'for' is heavily overloaded as an English preposition. You are expecting a connotation of "for [the benefit of] Linux" versus the connotation of "for [the purpose of] Linux". Another example in English might be the relative meanings of 'for' in "this gift is for you" versus "this gift is for good behavior".

Other languages use multiple words or different cases for some of these situations. English leaves it ambiguous.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by EpicEng on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @10:30PM (#14103662)

The fact that there are so many of us discussing it implies that it is a failure of a name. After all, what are words for if not communicating? We can debate semantics all day, but in the end, it's obvious that many people find the phrasing to be confusing.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by yakk0 on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @09:52AM (#14097642)

it's the subsystem for running Linux. It's not actually Linux, and after enabling the subsystem you still have to actually get the Ubutntu image. That image is the Linux part.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by Someone1234 on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @10:33AM (#14098034)

We all understand how it works. Repeating that is unconstructive.

It is a bad name that is bad English. It was bad when it was "Windows Services for UNIX" too as an aside.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by JdeBP on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @02:03PM (#14100133)

Note that this subsystem never actually was "Windows Services for UNIX". That was another subsystem, another personality on top of the Windows NT kernel.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by Someone1234 on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @03:50PM (#14101111)

Per context, "it" was the name of the thing. "It" (the name) was a bad name then and is a bad name now.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by GhotiFish on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:03PM (#14093628)

Windows Subsystem's Not Unix.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by greglindahl on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:21PM (#14094480)

... which might fit well with IBM's not quite Unix thing AIX, which acquired the nickname "Ain't unIX".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by TillE on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @07:54PM (#14093563)

But that (a subsystem "for Linux") would only be referring to the small compatibility layer for syscalls and stuff, rather than the whole Bash environment which "WSL" typically means.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by throwaway91111 on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @10:22PM (#14094234)

This explains one interpretation but it doesn't excuse the ambiguity.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by PhasmaFelis on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @05:54AM (#14096176)

I have only ever seen "<foo> Subsystem" used to mean a subsystem that does foo, not a subsystem for foo.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by yarrel on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @07:52PM (#14093548)

Yes that still doesn't work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by mixmastamyk on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @07:55PM (#14093571)

MS is horrible at naming things, WOW64 anyone?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by douche on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:40PM (#14093847)

Or the needless confusion when everything needed to have .NET tacked onto the name.

Or after they bought Skype, and rebranded the unrelated Lync as Skype for Business. Not to mention that Lync is a homophone of LINQ, which was coming out around when Office Communication Server became Lync...

Or lately, when you had Visual Studio 2015, and what is now Visual Studio 2017 being called Visual Studio '15 while it was pre-release.

Naming things is hard.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by cmarschner on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @10:10PM (#14094190)

I guess it is Visual Studio 15 (as in version 15), and that still holds.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by ygra on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @02:02AM (#14095172)

Yep, while in pre-release they always just use the version number and that only happened to be similar to the actual product name in VS 2010, I think.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by frou_dh on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @04:16AM (#14095768)

        ↑↑↑ 
    Bikeshedding
        ↓↓↓

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by akulbe on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:14PM (#14093677)

It's still the Windows kernel. No Linux kernel here. Just Linux userspace. The name may not sound good, but it's technically accurate. :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by ragix on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:57PM (#14093937)

Maybe it should be Windows subsystem for GNU

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by Zuider on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @10:46PM (#14094320)

Or 'GNU/NT' if we heed the purists who insist on saying 'GNU/Linux'. Not sure how to pronounce that...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by kupiakos on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:41PM (#14094569)

I'm for GNI\NT

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by deadbunny on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @10:28AM (#14097992)

twitch

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by jcwayne on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:29PM (#14093777)

Maybe "Windows's Subsystem for Linux"?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by tankenmate on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @06:07AM (#14096228)

Windows is plural so it should be Windows' Subsystem for Linux.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by jcwayne on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @09:22AM (#14097368)

I'd argue that it's singular in the same sense that Williams[1] is singular, despite have origins which imply it describes a plural concept. Plus, "Windows's" sounds funny.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_(surname)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by milcron on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:16PM (#14093694)

Better than "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by petecox on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @08:20PM (#14093717)

GNU/NT

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by metaobject on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @09:04PM (#14093965)

Isn't that Cygwin?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by yjftsjthsd-h on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @09:17PM (#14094018)

Cygwin is also GNU/NT.

If you like, it's the same as the ways of running GNU on the FreeBSD kernel; there's Debian/kFreeBSD, which is Debian compiled against the FreeBSD ABI, and there's the Linux compat layer that can run Linux ELF binaries unmodified. Both of those are legitimately GNU/FreeBSD systems (or subsystems).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by gerdesj on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @09:27PM (#14094056)

Try: "Window's Subsystem for Linux" instead of "Windows Subsystem for Linux" and see if that helps. It's still grammatically shit.

Now who can come up with the justification for an abbreviation of "whine"?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by Old_Thrashbarg on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @10:33PM (#14094275)

Yes, my first reaction to the title was "Oh, I can run some kind of Windows component on my Ubuntu machine now?".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by ryenus on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @06:26AM (#14096319)

"Windows Subsystem for Linux", though a confusing name, is still better than "Linux On Windows", because the later would lead to LOW, which is unfortunately very true, in terms of performance, they just don't want you to ever think in that way.

Edit: seriously, I'm just kidding

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by stirner on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @06:43AM (#14096407)

Have you compared benchmarks of any of your programs on native Windows and WSL? I've actually seen better performance on WSL in many cases.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by itomato on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @10:44AM (#14098134)

Instead we have BOW

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by gozur88 on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @04:28PM (#14101430)

Sadly, having a "Windows Subsystem for Linux" is only what they should have done.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by bambax on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @07:25AM (#14096609)

Yes! It sounds as if they're talking about Wine...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by rodgerd on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:31PM (#14094521)

Which is why I have a GNU/Windows sticker on my laptop.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by fellellor on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @12:15AM (#14094710)

Then why not Windows's Linux Subsystem?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by emmelaich on Tuesday April 11, 2017 @11:45PM (#14094588)

They could use Windows Linux Subsystem.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by torrent-of-ions on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @06:26AM (#14096322)

Yes. I saw this title and thought "oh, wow, they've now made a Windows Subsystem for Linux!"... Nope, it's the Linux subsystem for Windows.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by partycoder on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @01:48AM (#14095093)

Whatever name is better than "Bash for Windows", the worst possible name and the least tech-savvy way of describing what is going on. A real embarrassment.

They justify their choice saying they had a survey where the most popular option was Bash for Windows. Well, surveys also led to a boat called Boaty McBoatface...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by sgift on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @03:10AM (#14095461)

> Boaty McBoatface

A glorious name and a perfect example that surveys are a good idea. So - what's your point?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Testing the Windows Subsystem for Linux by PhasmaFelis on Wednesday April 12, 2017 @05:44AM (#14096136)

"<anything at all> for Windows" would at least accurately express what operating system it runs on. "<foo> for Linux" on a program that is not for Linux is just awful.

[ Parent | on HN ]