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by int_19h 1379 days ago
It had to be not just any POSIX userland, but the kind that could run all the popular web dev tooling, starting with Node.js. MacOS can get away with not being like Linux in many ways because of how widespread it is, but a new contender pretty much has to be compatible. And Linux is especially convenient to emulate due to its public and stable syscall interface.

All that said, the kernel emulation layer that WSL1 was built on was originally intended to run Android apps.
1 comments
pjmlp 1379 days ago
Nodejs runs on mainframes, web development is the new green phosphor terminals, POSIX userland does it perfectly fine.

Project Astoria is coming back on Windows 11.

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int_19h 1379 days ago
Node.js runs on many things, but packages (which is the actual thing that people want) are another matter. I remember trying to npm install something on FreeBSD; you wouldn't believe how many package scripts straight up assume that /bin/bash is always there.

And yes, Android apps are already there on Win11, so it kinda came full circle. But either way, the point is that emulating Linux kernel was originally a choice made for the sake of Android compatibility. That it ended up providing a much-needed development environment is a fortunate side effect of that decision.

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