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by cassianoleal 28 days ago
It's unpopular because it probably only serves hardcore Windows users who happen to need Linux for work - which is a very valid but likely relatively niche cohort.

I'm personally glad they (you?) are served but I suspect for pretty much anyone outside of that cohort, WSL is the worse of both worlds.
1 comments
Carrett 28 days ago
One thing is Linux for servers, where it has no real rival, and another is Linux Desktop, which I’ve been using for more than 20 years. But despite Windows’ reputation, I honestly think that no Linux distribution — whether with KDE, GNOME, or Hyprland — comes close to Windows in terms of stability and cohesion when managing windows, even though Windows still has a lot of room for improvement.

So Windows + WSL for anything you want to develop on Linux seems to me like one of the best solutions. I’d say you get the best of both worlds.

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cassianoleal 28 days ago
And that's fair.

I think you fall very much into the cohort I was talking about. Maybe the way I phrased it was not the best, but this is what I mean.

I don't find Windows ergonomic at all, and I don't care much about window management. Hell I'm on macOS at the moment which has atrocious window management and I wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 foot pole even if it may (and probably does) have better wm.

Add on top of that all the other terrible things with Windows (I'm not going to list them because I don't think it's necessary), plus how the WSL VM hinders the usage of Linux on it (as all VMs do), the overhead, etc. make it a much worse experience.

I personally like KDE but would happily use one of the alternatives. Window management is mostly to display GUIs on the screen and as long as it can do that (they all do), it's fine.

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