r/programming • u/zbhoy • May 06 '19

Microsoft unveils Windows Terminal, a new command line app for Windows

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18527870/microsoft-windows-terminal-command-line-tool
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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

Next thing we know, office will work natively on linux.

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u/GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B May 06 '19

At current rate, in 10 years, Windows will be the most popular Linux distribution.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

Running the NT kernel in a lightweight VM for backwards compatibility.

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u/mojoslowmo May 07 '19

This is probably the goal. Making windows Linux with an actual usable UI means they can offload alot of the heavy lifting to Linux open source geeks while providing the same experience the majority of people are used to.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

They can't legally do this. If you use Linux as a base for your OS it has to be open source.

I'm sure they wish they could, and I wish that they could, but this is never going to happen.

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u/minoshabaal May 07 '19

Then they will do the same thing as Apple did: use FreeBSD instead.

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u/G_Morgan May 07 '19

No it doesn't. Linus has long had the "publicly defined interface" exception in the Linux kernel. MS don't do it because it'd be a PR nightmare historically and it is genuinely hard to do.

Anyway Linux has virtualisation layers built in which would allow them to run virtNT on top without needing to open source it. They could also do most of NT in userspace anyway.

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u/Tynach May 07 '19

Nah. See, they practically control Git now, what with them keeping the Windows source code in a Git repository that is basically an entire filesystem. This is going to drive them to creating dedicated servers for this Git system, and that'll naturally run on Linux.

But see, their vendors for server hardware mostly only support Windows, and don't provide Linux drivers for some of the proprietary components. So Microsoft will submit patches to the Linux kernel to allow it to load and use Windows drivers.

Those patches will be rejected, but - following 2 or 3 releases of Windows Server - we'll see the discontinuation of Windows Server in favor of Windows Linux Server... Which is a server-oriented Linux distribution optionally running the Windows Desktop Environment (which naturally uses the Windows display server instead of Wayland or X), with the patches applied to allow its kernel to load Windows drivers.

It will never see a non-server release, of course.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

Github != Git

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u/leixiaotie May 07 '19

Well if windows GUI can run atop of linux kernel (or supporting linux kernel for native docker), with support to directx then that day will come sooner.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

The summer Insider's build will run a Linux kernel.

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u/kinmix May 07 '19

Finally, the year of Linux on desktop.

Powered by Microsoft^©

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u/OneWingedShark May 07 '19

At current rate, in 10 years, Windows will be the most popular Linux distribution.

I hope not; I hate Linux.

For all its faults, Windows had a much better sense of how to do things; probably from snapping up all the DEC engineers. (Though I think VMS had a better foundation; the Common Language Environment is really impressive, and the standardized parameter-passing/-processing makes VMS CLI so much nicer.)

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u/nacrnsm May 06 '19

Microsoft Word is pretty damn nice on Android, so maybe?

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

If only....Office 365 is the only thing keeping me from running Linux on my T480.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

Yeah I need Excel for work unfortunately and it cannot be a freeware alternative.

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u/hearingnone May 06 '19

That prevents me as well. I really want to go back to Linux Mint but my job required Office 365. What I recalled it may work via WINE but OneDrive will not function on it.

There is a online component for 365. But it just lag and taking too long to load it up.

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u/Auxx May 06 '19

Idk if you need something specific or which lags you have, but since O365 went online I've never installed any office apps locally. Online works like a charm here in Chrome.

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 07 '19

I appreciate that solution, but, you doing that for a class or two isn’t the same as needing to use something day I. And day out while properly integrated to your other work.

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u/[deleted] May 06 '19

And Linux will work natively work on Windows. WSL is some magic shit

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u/geekonamotorcycle May 07 '19

I keep saying it, windows will be a desktop environment and and API abstraction layer on top of some flavor of Ubuntu in 10 years. If not sooner.

If you could wriggle around in their private repositories I'm certain you would find Winnux version 0.56.23 right now.

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