When I stumbled on Dustin Kurkland’s blog post Ubuntu on Windows – The Ubuntu Userspace for Windows Developers on March 31st I really thought I had found the setup for an elaborate April Fool’s day prank. An Ubuntu user space inside of windows? Crazy Talk.
Windows Bourne Again
I spent the last week of March wrestling with various versions Cygwin & Git Bash that accumulated on my Windows 10 system. Scripts that worked in one didn’t work in another. An evening spent with rix0rrr’s’ fantastic Windows Path Editor was time well spent, I had a “good enough” solution but I was still left feeling burned. I have simple needs. Just let me drop into a good old Bash shell, get my work done and I’ll be on my way. The cool kids with the shiny Macs can do it. Why, Windows? Why can’t I?
He Clicked on Preview Build 14316 and You’ll Never Guess What Happened Next !!
And then there were more rumblings. No, Dustin hadn’t set us all up with a cruel joke. From the mouth of Microsoft itself on April 6, 2016:
Today we are releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14316 to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring…
Here’s what’s new in Build 14316 Run native Bash on Ubuntu on Windows: In this build, you can natively run Bash in Windows as announced last week at Build 2016.
Game On! I had enrolled in Microsoft’s Insider Program pre-Windows 10. Golden ticket in hand I fired up to the old machine in the attic, installed about a bazillion updates and finally got Build 14316. A little more googling revealed the need to visit the Turn Windows Features on or off to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux(Beta) option. A reboot later and:
Better than Lickable Wallpaper
You get the idea. I feel my Mac envy fading.
What? No Sprinkles?
Damn it. I just had to push the envlope. Had to. Tried sudo apt-get install docker-engine and no dice. It seems with all the Azure / Docker buzz floating around this might a very cool thing for Redmond to get all over. I am never satisfied. Well, maybe for a little while.
