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Posts: 339 | Thanked: 1,623 times | Joined on Oct 2013 @ France
#55
Originally Posted by juiceme View Post
A nitpick; WSL does not have a linux kernel, it's an API translation layer very much like WINE but the other way around; the linux library calls are translated to equivalent windoze library calls.

It is a neat thing however, and might be of use to people who for some reason are locked to windows environment and can't or don't want to use a VM.
Yes, it mainly has the "GNU" part of the "GNU/linux" system.
It works very well for command line. The local disks are mounted over /mnt/ so can be accessed. I grep a lot of things that way.
Graphical apps can be launched from the linux subsystem if they support X11, and you start Xming (an X11 server for windows) on the Windows side. Not tested fully, but the little I tested worked ok (feels a little bit slower than a native display however).

For me, it replaced cygwin I was using before for that kind of things.

There are still some limitations, like access to serial ports (should be in a future update if not yet added, I have to check that again, didn't worked last time) and some other hardware (not sure USB devices can be accessed directly for example?).
 

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