This is Why Developers Are Embracing Microsoft Windows Again

Even though I’m a Linux junkie, I’m now a regular Windows desktop user as well

Erik van Baaren
Python Land
Published in
5 min readSep 7, 2021

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Windows running Ubuntu Linux, with VSCode connected to it (image by author)

Although I’ve been a big fan of Apple’s Macbook Air and Macbook Pro, I’ve recently made the switch to a Dell XPS laptop with Windows on it.

I initially planned to wipe the Dell hard drive to install Linux, but since the beast has a 2 TB SSD disk, I changed my mind, created a dual boot setup, and kept Windows.

Read on to see how I came to embrace Windows after years of Linux and MacOS use!

Originally published on Python Land: Run Linux On Windows With WSL.

The new Microsoft?

Now that I had Windows at my disposal again, I started experimenting with it. Although there have been cosmetic changes and improvements, there’s also a lot of stuff from the old days that seems pretty much unchanged. For example, there’s still that dreadful registry. Most shortcuts are unchanged, the look and feel are mostly the same, and most importantly: the hardware support is still excellent.

However, what has changed is Microsoft’s attitude towards open-source software and the open-source ecosystem as a whole. Instead of seeing Linux as a threat, Microsoft has embraced it. And instead of reducing command-line usage to a minimum, Microsoft has seen the light and created both Powershell and Windows Terminal to help us developers get stuff done without a GUI.

Instead of seeing Linux as a threat, Microsoft has embraced it

Windows Subsystem for Linux

What really drew me back is WSL, short for Windows Subsystem for Linux. If you don’t know it yet, it’s the bomb!

Initially, WSL worked by translating Linux kernel calls to Windows calls. With WSL2, however, you’re running a real Linux kernel through a very thin virtualization layer. In fact, even Windows is running through that same hypervisor. So Linux becomes a first-class citizen on your system, sharing system resources with Windows.

Without going into all the details, I’ll tell you the result: you can open a full-blown Linux…

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