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Review of Windows Subsystem for Linux powered by the Slant community.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run Linux environments – including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications – directly on Windows, unmodified, without the overhead of a virtual machine.
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Pros
Pro Light resource usage unlike virtual machines
There's no VM overhead because WSL is not a VM.
Pro Includes common UNIX utilities
Windows Subsystem for Linux comes with common UNIX utilities such as grep
, awk
, etc.
Pro Supports multiple Linux distributions
WSL supports multiple Linux distros, and you can use the distro's package manager (e.g. apt-get
on Ubuntu) to install other tools and binaries.
Pro Runs native Linux tools
Cons
Con Too complicated
It's complicated to use as it requires moving files to/from wsl to base windows.
Con You can't mix and match installations - utilities added to the subsystem are only available in the subsystem
If you install node in the Windows subsystem, it is not available in Windows, only in the subsystem and vice versa.
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