WTF WSL LOL NV JK
As discussed earlier, I have indeed purchased a Windows 10 based ultrabook and I’m not immediately installing Linux on it. I cannot tell a lie: I have kept Windows 10 on it, along with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to scratch that Ubuntu itch.
And it’s just fine.
Even though WSL is in beta (and I’m compounding that by installing bleeding edge “Windows Insider” builds) it’s actually pretty solid. I might be losing all my hipster geek street-cred by saying it, but Windows 10 is just as good for me as OS X. Since I’m no avid fan of any X.org environment, this means I think it’s better than any Linux UI. So that’s a win.
WSL seems to be a pretty complete command-line Ubuntu install, with all the trappings of a Debian-flavoured console. I haven’t really pushed it hard, of course, but as a sort of acid-test I moved my Ruby-Jekyll-GitHub blog stuff over to the new lappy and made the right gem and apt-get incantations until I was able to successfully run bundle exec jekyll serve. I also updated Ubuntu to Xenial last night with little trouble.
I didn’t think I’d care that much about the mechanisms by which Microsoft has done all of this, but I’ve been skimming the technical notes with some interest. They’ve really done a decent job of implementing the user and kernel spaces.