Does that mean they are giving up on the syscall emulation thing?

The whole thing of WSL was it that contained no Linux kernel at all.

It means the opposite.

Today, Linux Docker containers on Windows rely on a VM running on Hyper-V.

Tomorrow (by which I mean "in the future," or "June 2019" or whatever the announcement says) Linux Docker containers on Windows will run natively, without the Linux VM crutch. I am assuming that it will use the emulated syscalls the same way that WSL runs today.

Not sure about that, except if their phrasing is astonishingly poor, which is of course possible. I mean, in my book "Linux 4.19 kernel shipping in Windows" means a Linux kernel shipping in Windows, and that would need Hyper-V (Linux is trademarked btw, MS can't just pretend that they ship a Linux kernel if they don't). At the same time, I really hope that this is not the case and that it actually means that they are targeting a syscall compatibility with Linux version 4.19; because I'm certainly not gonna give up my third party VMs for some work, so if WSL is rebased on Hyper-V that means bye-bye WSL for me.

Rewriting WSL to suddenly require a VM would be a HUGE leap backwards and I can't see that being the solution chosen. It doesn't make sense.

Adding the appropriate things to WSL to make Docker for Windows no longer require the Moby VM, or to support Linux Docker within the WSL environment without modification, is an approach that makes much more sense to me.

It appears that is what they have done though: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/shipping-a-linux-...

Show me where in that article it says that a VM is required. Am I interpreting you incorrectly?

This article was linked from another article which I guess is where I saw the VM info:

> WSL 2 uses the latest and greatest in virtualization technology to run its Linux kernel inside of a lightweight utility virtual machine (VM). However, WSL 2 will NOT be a traditional VM experience.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/

WSL 2 is a (lightweight magic) VM.

My guess is that they mean that they will fully support the syscall surface of Linux 4.19. I highly doubt that they're actually going to include the kernel inside Windows due to the GPL licensing, the linking issues would force open far more than even Nadella would like.

Does that mean one can mount ext drives now?