Does anybody know how to get the new version of the linux subsystem for windows, without going through the windows app store, ie for enterprise users?

Are you on the ‘Fall Creators Update’ yet? Think that’s the only way to get it from the store anyway.

If before that update, and maybe it still works in the latest, you can use the older method by manually enabling/installing it.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/commandline/wsl/install_guide?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Not sure you can get anything other than Ubuntu that way though. The other versions may only be via the store.

There may be an Enterprise managed way of rolling it out also. Don’t know.

This enables me to run all the normal linux tools native on Windows without having to use cygwin (I’m assuming cygwin will shortly be consigned to history?) How have I missed this?

Though given my favourite flavour is Fedora/Centos (Redhat) it seems I’d have to go the appstore route. But then when I go there whilst it says in the header “Install and run Ubuntu, openSUSE, SLES and Fedora side-by-side on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)”, I only have Ubuntu openSUSE and SLES install options available. Is Fedora coming soon?

On a more general point, is there any reason not to get the Fall Creators Update?

Have you installed it previously and are now wondering how to get the latest ubuntu release ? (iirc – when you upgrade the subsystem it’s a manual process to update the ubuntu version)

sudo do-release-upgrade

should sort you out if so

Fedora is still under “coming soon”.

Release upgrade command worked with the last feature update in Windows 10 as I had a previous version installed.

Only thing is I guess you’re not getting the store app management, but then not sure it gives you anything with an existing install.

I guess I’ll have to go for Ubuntu then – though effectively we’re talking about command line tools here? So I get a Debian shell, which I’m probably just as happy with – it’s what I have on an RPi – without most of the stuff I dislike about Ubuntu.

Yeah, basically. Likewise I’m mostly familiar with Debian via Pi these days.

Not sure on Fedora. Used to use it years ago but got frustrated by the rapid release and early retirement. It was no use for a server I had running it as I had a lot of customisations and each upgrade was a breaking change so I’d delay it. Every year or so I’d be too out of date and can’t upgrade any more. Community attitude was wipe the server and re-install every release. Not practical for me. It’s a bleeding edge OS really, or was.

Ooh somehow didn’t know about this either. Is it Win10 only? (If so then that’ll be why).

How does it compare to just using cygwin?

I thought I would prefer to continue running a small VM under Hyper-V and then SSH’ing to it, but the ability to blend PowerShell with Bash is cool (although I have not actually done anything useful with it yet).

The other plus point is that WSL really winds up some of the hardcore FOSS advocates I work with who see it as Microsoft subterfuge.

GrahamS – Member 
Ooh somehow didn’t know about this either. Is it Win10 only? (If so then that’ll be why).
How does it compare to just using cygwin?

Win 10 64bit only.

Cygwin is basically select linux packages recompiled to run on Windows.

Linux subsystem for Windows is a compatibility layer that allows native linux ELF binaries to run on Windows and can run selected distributions of Linux in this subsystem. A distribution is installed in a special folder in your user profile. It’s primarily console use, but in theory graphical apps will work but there is no X server. If you run an X server on the PC or another device you can get them to work.

It’s user level stuff. No kernel & devices, though some emulation of devices.

It’s really quite neat and allows me to use development tools that are native to linux or better on linux without having to fire up a VM etc.

It’s all about the grep sed and awk .. you can do all of this in PS but it saves learning it all again.

Thanks deadkenny. Certainly sounds very interesting.

Sadly our dev environments are Win7 at best (and XP at worst!!) so I may have to wait a while for this brave new world 😀

Is a fair comment – it’s kind of supposed to be a bleeding edge OS. For servers you’re better off using Centos which is fundamentally the same underneath but on a slower release cycle and designed for use with servers. The only frustration comes if you’re using a Fedora/Centos mix as I have and you find that there’s an update to something on Fedora you’d really like to have on your server. I ended up rebuilding DHCP server from Fedora on Centos at one point.

Using the app store as the ONLY delivery method for this kind of thing really pisses me off. FFS Microsoft you are doing something fundamentally good then lobbing a shit grenade at half the likely users.

The aim is, or was, to get everything managed through the store, hence ability to wrap x86 apps in a store app. Not sure how far that’s gone yet.

While I’m not so keen on an Apple like slicing a cut of fees via a store, I do welcome having all application installs controlled via a single package system. Installers have been horrendous for years (since the beginning) with Windows, with nothing really standard between them and it’s far too easy for an installer to wreck the system. Worse is the hosting of install packages is totally down to the developer/supplier and can be place anywhere and be subjected to evil malware injections on dodgy download sites.

There is a package management solution in Windows 10. However there’s nothing that forces people to use a standard and no standard single trustable and reliable source to fetch packages. Okay there is the third party Chocolatey, but this depends on trusting third party curation.

This WSL is a great idea, but one of its main uses is going to be within businesses, and there is no way that they are just going to secede control over what is and isn’t installed on corporate desktops because of it.

It just smacks of microsoft not understanding how their own products are actually used by their customers. FFS our production LAN where I want to use it does not connect to the internet, not everything is a sales office, it is common for production environments to be isolated lans.