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by thesis 7 days ago
Moved to mac about 7 years ago because of horrible WSL file system speed was.
3 comments

You could just move your files to the WSL file system
That kind of defeats the entire purpose of them being accessible from the rest of the system.
You can access them from the rest of the system. For normal usage the performance is completely acceptable but for development tasks it matters.
People who run WSL are not normal users. The filesystem problems make Windows+WSL feel like a Trabant when you're used to a Porsche.
Yes well I felt the same way with how slow Docker file systems were on Mac but I think that's fixed now.
Not really, I only care about WSL for containers, zero filesystem problems.
> Just copy it into the WSL file system

Yea bro totally. Totally. I'm gonna copy 2TB of media into the WSL virtual disk just so ffmpeg can run a little faster but still way slower than simply running linux.

(I beta tested the shit out of WSL1 and 2) before I wised up and just installed Gentoo forever.

You can run that directly on Windows.

But either way yeah most people aren't dealing with large media libraries that's obviously a little more difficult. But if you are primarily operating on them with WSL then you would just keep them in the WSL file system and you could access them from Windows whenever you need to...

Indeed. I have my agent edited files in podman in Lima, under two layers, and it's fine, because I do most stuff within my podman VMs. (I have shared volumes so I can review things before pushing the changes to my forge in separate containers that the agent can't access. When I need stuff on my mac, which is the exception, not the rule, I just copy them, putting them in a tar or zip if it's a lot of files.
There is ffmpeg for Windows.
That helps me exactly zero when I'm running something that is compiled for Linux and has no context in which to use the windows version. Which may not even be compiled with the same ./configure settings and would therefor potentially be missing entire codecs available to it.

This ladies and gentleman is the problem with discussing Windows design patterns on the internets. They say "use this" and you say "well it's broken in X, Y, Z" ways and instead of fixing it they say "you're using it wrong". No. Maybe it's just an inferior architecture.

You are very far from the average WSL user, especially with that Gentoo mention.
Everyone in the tech industry should know how to install Gentoo.
Why are you using ffmpeg under wsl?
What's the point of this question? It doesn't matter.

The entire point of wsl is to be able to run code compiled for Linux on Windows.

ffmpeg underpins so many things these days. It could be used to extract frames in a PHP based website, convert something to a gif, or a demux an mkv. You may as well be asking me why I'm using a computer.

I am not very impressed with macos file system speed when using docker, same problem really.

If you build 100+ megabytes images several times per day it really sucks.

Same here, though I went to Linux first for several years. WSL file speeds, especially when running npm install, were the impetus that ultimately got me to switch off of Windows.
Sounds like you were just doing it wrong

Either you run npm install from Windows if you are operating on the Windows file system or you run it on WSL if you are operating on the WSL file system both cases will be very fast

Or, as they said, they didn't want to have to think about it so they chose to switch.
The entire Windows operating system is doing it wrong. Seriously who daily drives windows these days. lol.
Well before Windows I spent years with both Linux and Mac and I found Windows to be a good mix of stability and suitability for development now that WSL is a thing. Also for gaming it's the best by a long shot so just all around I've found it to be best and WSL made me never miss Linux.
Nah my frames on Linux beat yours easily.
Unlikely due to the better and more stable NVIDIA drivers available to Windows and the greater compatibility with every game without having to mess around with configuration files or other hacks. But you do you.
I really find these takes hilarious. HN users are so far removed from the average person it's comical.
For one, the game developers that don't care about SteamDeck.
I do and I have no problems. Feel free to ask me anything.
Oh, you know, about 70+% of the global desktop/laptop market. Nearly every F500 company.

But yeah sure, no one runs windows these days.

Because Windows is the operating system of Not Getting Fired. Fear is a stronger motivator than creativity or productivity.
Nah, some of us gave up on The Year of Desktop Linux, especially on laptops, and decided to make use of desktop VMs instead.
Believe it or not, there's plenty of people that specifically choose windows, not just out of fear of getting fired or inertia. The idea that all devs use a mac and that windows is garbage for any kind of development is purely a silicon valley bubble thing.

And there's still a big niche that Windows is your only choice since the move to Apple silicon. If you need both a dGPU and access to commercial software, its literally your only choice. Game dev especially comes to mind if you're jumping between maya, after effects, etc. Windows is also huge in finance.

My memory is murky here, but I don't think WSL even had two different file systems at the time.
How would you run Linux without Linux having its own file system that doesn't even make sense
I can't tell if you're trolling me or just unfamiliar with WSL1?