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by zenexer 2628 days ago
This probably isn't the technical explanation your looking for, but, in general, processes on Windows and processes on Unix aren't the same--or, at least, they're not meant to be used the same way. Creating lots of small processes on Windows has long been discouraged and considered poor design, whereas the opposite is true on Unix.

One could probably argue that processes on Windows need to be lighter-weight now that sandboxing is a common security practice. These days, programs like web browsers opt to create a large number of processes both for security and stability purposes. In much the same way that POSIX should deprecate the fork model, Windows should provide lighter-weight processes.
1 comments
wvenable 2628 days ago
Windows now has minimal processes that have almost no setup and pico processes (based on minimal processes) that are the foundation for Linux processes in WSL.
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waterhouse 2628 days ago
The last time I used WSL (perhaps 6 months ago), its per-process overhead was awful. I don't recall the numbers, but I think it managed to start fewer than 10 processes per second. My memory suggests it was more like two processes per second, though I would recommend re-testing before trusting that.

Found my previous comment on it (which has a test case but not numbers): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18226921

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temac 2628 days ago
On 1803 and 1903 it's 3 to 4 times faster than MsysGit (WSL is ~1s on my laptops). It is possibly slightly faster on 1903 as my laptop running it is faster than the other for this bench, despite having an older processor.

Now in a Linux VM it's approx 10 times faster than even WSL. And that should probably be even faster natively.

So anyway WSL is really usable and if you really only started 10 processes per sec something is wrong. Maybe you are using a crappy antivirus (I've heard that Kaspersky makes WSL extremely slow)

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waterhouse 2627 days ago
Well, I hadn't installed any antiviruses myself. I think Windows Defender was running, though. It's possible that my computer came with additional crapware on it.
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temac 2627 days ago
I just checked and both of my benchs were done with Defender.

When I disable it, it is down to ~0.5s

I would not build a Linux kernel here instead of in a VM, but for tons of things, this is very usable.

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