Did you say Linux? In the Windows Store?
Like, OMG! Did we just enter some weird hallucination, or parallel universe? Nope! Microsoft have announced that they continue their partnership with Ubuntu/Canonical. MS have now announced that they are working with SuSE and Fedora to bring their respective distributions to the Windows ‘app’ store, implemented under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
Earlier this month, during Microsoft’s Build conference keynote, Terry Myerson (EVP for Windows & Devices Group) made several announcements about the Windows Subsystem for Linux. During this, he confirmed that the Redmond based company would take yet another step forward for Linux on Windows.
Benefits of downloading from the Windows Store
Rich Turner of Microsoft Developer Network, unveiled the new features have several key benefits. He stated the following benefits:
- Enjoy faster and more reliable downloads
- Install distros to secondary fixed drives (i.e. not C:!)
- You can run different distros aligned more closely with your production environments and/or personal preferences
- You can run more than one distro at a time – great for when you need to work on systems that span different environments
Mr Turner went on to say:
WSL was always designed to be distro-agnostic and this is the first time we’re exercising this aspect of the system. As always, we greatly appreciate any testing you can help us with, and if you find problems, please file bugs in our GitHub issues repo. We can’t wait to hear how you get on installing via the store and running different and multiple distros!
These new features will arrive in an up-coming Windows Insider build. If you’d like to be among the first to try-out these new distros, be sure to sign-up for the Windows Insider program, and configure your Win10 machine to install fast-ring builds.
Linux on dumbed down Windows 10 S version too?
In light of the recent release of Windows (10 S, which is an Educational-based Windows version, which only allows apps that are available from the Microsoft Store), Mr Turner stated that applications that access the Windows subsystem at the low level (including these Linux/WSL distros) are not available for this edition of Windows.
Further Reading
- The Verge: Linux in Windows Store
- Microsoft Developer Blog:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2017/05/11/new-distros-coming-to-bashwsl-via-windows-store/?utm_source=cronweekly.com