WSL will truly be the “Windows Subsystem for Linux”, as foretold in the prophecy.
Well, yeah: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
Nothing to extend/extinguish. UNIX existed first, and has a very different use-case. Linux shares that history.
NT was developed from DEC Alpha, which came well after Unix (so learned some lessons from it). I don’t see it being inferior to Unix/Linux, but different.
Both have strengths and weaknesses.
One area that Linux really beats Windows is the IoT/embedded/low power devices. The NT kernel just has too much built in.
It can happen if Microsoft decides not to spend money on making a new kernel because they will need one eventually. But a compatibility layer? Why would they not make it exclusive to Windows?
I don’t think it’s guaranteed that Linux will be a viable kernel in a future where NT’s forced to be abandoned unless it’s simply because Microsoft refuses to maintain it. Linux is older than NT, so if age alone killed kernels, it’d die first. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Linux can be kept viable for a long time, so if Microsoft wanted, they could keep NT viable for a long time.
I heard there were some issues with NT so I assumed it’d die well before Linux (if Linux doesn’t kill itself in the next 2-3 years of course).
The Windows kernel is actually pretty solid. Its is the rest of the system that’s the problem.
Except all the exceptions, like edge having memory read/write right without protection. Or so I have heard.
Source?
Edge is based on Chromium which is arguably one of the more secure pieces of software in existence. If it wasn’t it would be exploited immediately.
Meanwhile Dillo is some hobby project that only has 14 contributors. It lacks the sandboxing provided by bigger browsers and has very few users let alone security testers.
…? Chrome had 10 critical rce vulnerabilities exploited last year alone… who mentioned Dillo?
Yeah that’s not going to happen.
However, I think Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
Very much this. I can see one potential future Microsoft product being something that is to be installed on a thin client PC sold to consumers for cheap. It will run not much more than a browser in which all apps will load from Microsoft servers, and all storage will be on the Microsoft cloud. And if you miss a monthly payment they’ll basically hold all your files for ransom until you start paying again.
I can practically hear the Microsoft execs making some very unsavoury noises about that idea.
As for (admittedly somewhat weak) proof they’re headed in this direction: Wordpad is a useful small program that would easily fit onto a thin client and there’d be room for documents created by it on the limited storage available. It has to have some storage for browser cache after all.
Wordpad was recently cancelled, and users urged to use Word instead. Which is not free of (further) cost like Wordpad was.
That’s not too far from Windows S edition. That more closely mimics the smartphone model, but still allows the Windows app store.
Wordpad is much more easily explained: They don’t want to maintain it anymore, since that costs money. It was also cannibalizing sales of Word, and often left users frustrated. Frankly, it’s weird that they maintained it as long as they did.
Now, solitaire becoming a subscription, that’s a blatant cash grab.
They could have just renamed it. Wordpad’s Win3.11 predecessor was called “Write”, for example, so that name could have been revived.
For a long time, write.exe still existed and all it did was launch Wordpad, so they’d only have to reverse that.
They could also have chosen another name entirely. Or, since they’ve recently added a bunch of unnecessary crap to Notepad, they might as well have merged the two.
“Confusion” is merely an excuse.
I never said confusion, nor did I say it had anything to do with the name. WordPad development takes time and money with minimal return. It also provides a very minimal subset of the capabilities of Word. People expecting Word capabilities are frustrated by the limitations of WordPad, and are actually happier being told it’s simply not available without additional purchase.
Windows Chromebook
Edgebook
Windows will become more and more tied to the Microsoft cloud offerings.
imagine spending thousand of dollars on hardware only to have dependencies in NSA data center for your own safety, of course
It’s already partially there with WSL. Still has a long way to go. But it isn’t completely rediculous.
Isn’t that kinda the opposite? I thought WSL was just the ability to just run linux cli stuff on a machine running windows
as far as I understand it’s more like a VM. But yeah it’s quite literally the opposite of what OP suggested.
Yea, it’s an API, just like POSIX was decades ago. (Though more advanced, it’s been decades after all). .
WSL version 1 is an API translation. WSL 2 runs Linux in a vm.
This is exactly what MS has been doing. They will have a “preview” edition of “new windows” sometime in the next 5 years that is built entirely on GNU/Linux with a port of the windows shell on top.
Doubt.
Mark mine: Microsoft and Windows will be promoted by government and people will lap it up. Linux will be vilified and this will be accepted by the public, at least in the USA.
Eh…I don’t see it.
I think the more common response would be “What’s Linux?”
And the license pricing will only adjust for inflation.
Dumbest take of 2025, I’m calling it early.
Not “he’s just autistic” or “it was a Bellamy salute?”
I knew Lemmy was Linux centric, but I didn’t realize just how much lmao
All instances I’ve seen of “he’s just autistic” on Lemmy were sarcastic and were making fun people actually arguing that was a valid excuse on other platforms.
Of course, Lemmy rocks in that way. But it didn’t say “dumbest take on Lemmy” just dumbest take.
Wrong thread?
No, they just said it’s the worst take of 2025. I can think of worse. Lol
So animals evolve towards being crabs, operating systems evolve towards being linux distros?
Animals evolve towards being crabs? Wait, hold on with the linux stuff. Lets circle back to the core concept of this premise.
…crabs?
I don’t think they would bother doing that much work at the core of the operating system. They are too busy playing with the UI and cloud integrations they don’t care about the algorithms the kernel runs on and they have a better driver situation currently anyway. I don’t see the route to this.
I think this is actually possible. The (terribly inconvenient and piecemeal) change from Control Panel to Settings has involved making a lot of the Windows configuration options accessible through PowerShell and .NET (which is actually a good thing - it makes it much easier to administrate a system remotely via command prompt vs RDP, and it makes it easier to configure the system programmatically). It’s not complete yet, but I could see that in the future the Windows user environment is entirely built on top of .NET, at which point you could theoretically run it on any OS that supports .NET.
Except that would be negative not positive. Microsoft is all about making lots of money and measuring KPI.
Honestly I thought they would abandon doing the kernel awhile back and going the apple route of freebsd but it never happened.
