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by tsar9x 2242 days ago
My view is that WSL2 will help developers who are stuck on Windows (many enterprises force Windows on users).

I don't think Linux will be affected as much. Moreover, Linux is better than ever:

- you can buy laptop with Linux from two companies: Dell and System76, soon from Lenovo

- performance can't be beat (especially for development, with native docker and kvm for virtualization)

- amazing package managers, with fwupd you can even update firmware

- graphics stack is really good and getting better, firefox on wayland with video decoding support, wayland with great hidpi support

- work on chromium on wayland in progress (beta already available), we will have electron apps with hidpi support

- no bloatware (candy crush, 100s of processes...)

- gaming with Proton is miles better than gaming on macOS, still behind Windows for known reasons

Obviously if you need Adobe/Office, Linux loses many points :)

1 comments

In reality enterprise users on have zero chances seeing WSL2 on their PCs in foreseeable future. Last two banks I worked for ran windows builds 1703 and 1803 respectively, more progressive of the two announced plans to update to 1903 not too long ago (yes, two first digits is year).

Oh, and WSL1 was banned, of course, on the grounds of being "too expensive and uncertain to support". You could have a Linux VM though, with approved distro, same as what prod machines run.

So really WSL is still confined to a small domain of switchers tired of MBP keyboards, Linux is safe for now :)

You are right that enterprises are lagging 1-2 years behind current windows build, but in many of them WSL is seen as major improvement for developers. Fortunately I am allowed to run Linux, so I don't care :)