Microsoft Allows Ubuntu Linux To Run On Windows 10

Microsoft wants people to use Windows. To be clear, Microsoft wants people to use Windows and the connected elements of its total platform ecosystem which includes Office 365, the Azure cloud and the newer streams of technology including Cortana and new cognitive machine-learning services.

To this end, the once proprietarily puritan Microsoft has open sourced an increasing amount of its total IT stack. If open source Windows (or a good percentage of it) probably won’t come about until sometime after 2020, the ability to run Linux in a natural native state on a Windows machine must surely be the next best thing.

So what has happened?

The news this week is quite encouraging. Indeed, it would be thought of as a joke perhaps even five years ago. The firm has worked with Canonical (the firm that looks after the Ubuntu Linux operating system) to put its version of Linux ‘Bash’ command line distribution on Windows and the creation of native Ubuntu binaries directly into Windows 10 as a Windows subsystem.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical made the following statement, "The native availability of a full Ubuntu environment on Windows, without virtualization or emulation, is a milestone that defies convention and a gateway to fascinatingly unfamiliar territory. In our journey to bring free software to the widest possible audience, this is not a moment we could have predicted. Nevertheless we are delighted to stand behind Ubuntu for Windows, committed to addressing the needs of Windows developers exploring Linux in this amazing new way, and excited at the possibilities heralded by this unexpected turn of events."

In other words, Microsoft has allowed real Linux inside Windows, much more easily than ever before – and this will mean that software application developers can use Linux tools and utilities when working on Windows.

Previously this would have to have been done through users’ individual customizing actions by disk partitioning, creating virtual machine boot space, running an emulator and/or through installing a third-party interface like Cygwin. All of which were a) time consuming b) troublesome and c) likely to make debugging and testing more difficult from the start.

Why this is a good thing

1. Programming has often been accused of being dumbed down as ‘drag-and-drop’ development increases – so giving Windows coders faster access to a Linux command line is a good thing.
2. Some will argue that Windows has a lot more scope and power than Linux anyway, so why bother? But the cross cross-fertilization of tools and techniques between the two worlds can only be a good thing.
3. This is Microsoft clearly affirming that it regards Linux as powerful and important – system administrators (sysadmins) often use control utilities across both Windows and Linux, now they can do some more fluidly with easier interchangeability.
4. Fans of Ubuntu will be able to run this version of Linux simultaneously with Windows as an integrated part of Windows 10 and not as a virtual machine – so the best parts of each technology base could cross pollinate.

Don’t get too excited

This is not Ubuntu’s Unity graphical user interface (GUI) on Windows 10, this is the ‘command line’ i.e. the C: prompt, this is for programmers, the target audience here is not users, the target audience is developers.

Could users run a Linux desktop such as Unity, GNOME, or KDE on it the Bash command line? Yes probably agrees Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, but that's not the purpose of this partnership. But, it does mean that the benefits will still reach you in the end, whatever operating system you use whether that is Windows or Linux.

Not one single techie journalist thought this was anything but great news and the headline ‘hell freezes over’ was used more than once. Let’s embrace it, even if Microsoft does secretly still want to spread its DNA everywhere and rule the world.