Re: WSL keeps getting better, and it's because Microsoft is finally? admitting where developers want to be

On Sun, 5 Jul 2026 12:41:18 -0000 (UTC), Robert Heller wrote:

> The only "weirdness" (to me) about the WSL is why? Is microsoft trying
> to entice Linux user (partitularly developers) away from Linux? The WSL
> is not going to appeal to the "typical" MS-Windows user (or if the
> "typical"
> MS-Windows user starts using the WSL, they might decide to just install
> Linux and move on. Developers already on Linux are not going to install
> MS-Windows just to use WSL. And no, doing that just to build MS-Windows
> versions of Linux programs is not really a reason -- there exist tools
> to cross-build on Linux targeting MS-Windows.

A real use case: The wifi service available at shows is expensive and 
often not very reliable. Maps assume you are downloading tiles from a tile 
server, in our case Esri. You sued to be able to see the tiles assembling 
with a slow connection as each tile of the basemap was downloaded and 
rendered.

The marketing people were firmly rooted in Windows so the demo setup was 
installed on their laptops so they could do the dog and pony show, but 
displaying the map was problematic with crappy wifi.

https://switch2osm.org/serving-tiles/manually-building-a-tile-server-
debian-13/

Building a tile server is a well documented path -- for Linux distors. In 
theory PostGIS, Mapnik, and so forth are available on Windows and you 
could possibly set up the server but there would be a lot of cut'n'try.

I'd recently purchased a Beelink mini for my own use and originally 
thought about using one for the tile server. Given the budget for trade 
shows, $350 was noise. However that would be one more piece of gear to be 
shipped to the show and set up. Marketing always goes through many 
practice sessions so the show will go smoothly. Not. 

I created a WSL instance on a marketing laptop, gathered the data for the 
PA county that matched the demo data, and hooked it up. MS actually has 
improved the IP connections between the Windows and WSL sections but that 
was the hardest part. The result was one laptop completely set up so all 
the marketing people had to do was turn it on and plug in the external 
monitors. If they didn't lose them along the way.

I'm sure there are more cases. On AWS a Linux instance is much cheaper 
than a Windows one so it's cheaper to run everything that can be done on 
Linux. During the development phase it's convenient to simulate the cloud 
locally and that can often be done with WSL.