alt Hacker NewsIt did work quite well. The problem with the filesystem could have been solved by optimizing the Windows kernel, that would have benefit also programs run outside the WSL by the way (NTFS have performance problems and Microsoft knows, and even provided a kind of solution as far as I know with the developer FS or what they call it).
The thing that I don't like of the WSL2 is that is just a VM, but a VM that is very limited. For example working in the embedded development field I often need to use serial ports or USB devices, a thing that the WSL2 is not capable of doing (unless passing trough USB/IP that has its compatibility issues especially for stuff like debuggers needing precise timing), and that the WSL1 was at least for the serial ports able to do. This is a limitation that doesn't allow me to use the WSL. Same thing with all kind of other software that wants to access peripherals of the machine natively (e.g. a GPU for example, or another PCI card, something that to be fair is not even doable as far as I know with hypervisors on Windows but completely doable with hypervisors running on a Linux OS where trough the IO MMU you can share any PCI device of the host to the VM).
WSL1 was a great idea, bad thing that Microsoft abandoned it for something that is just good for web application development.
Replies
> The problem with the filesystem could have been solved by optimizing the Windows kernel
Over time this would tie the Windows kernel’s requirements so that they matched the Linux kernel’s due to expectations from WSL1 users. This of course is a bad idea for any engineering organization - you will have requirements imposed on you that don’t mesh well with your other non-WSL users and you also have no real sway over Linux governance. This would lead to the Windows kernel either becoming a clone of Linux or serving at least one set of users poorly.
Why would you work on embedded development through a VM? Out of curiosity.
> (NTFS have performance problems and Microsoft knows, and even provided a kind of solution as far as I know with the developer FS or what they call it)
NTFS does not have performance problems. The difference between DevDrive, which uses ReFS (arguably a more 'resilient' file system than NTFS due to journaling) and a standard NTFS volume is the file system filters are either removed or in the case of Defender, put in async mode.
The file system filter architecture is the performance problem, not the file systems. It's a trade off to have a more extensible I/O stack.