Microsoft is making Windows 10 more and more like Linux

Microsoft continues to actively develop the system from Windows to Linux (SENDING) of shell. In Build 2020 conference, Microsoft announced that the next step: the support for GUI applications, along with hardware acceleration. In the future, it will be possible to run GUI Linux apps on Windows. After the addition of a full-fledged Linux kernel as part of the WSL2 update (which is part of Windows 10 May 2020 update) and the tight integration of Windows 10 with the file Browser in Linux, this step as a whole, it seems quite logical. But even so, we should not expect from this type of ads.

This will be carried out without the need of X11 forwarding by the users of Windows. The innovation is mainly intended for developers to allow them to run Linux Integrated Development Environment (IDE) along with regular Windows applications.

Microsoft is making Windows 10 more and more like Linux

And although prior to that it was possible to run Linux GUI applications on Windows with a third party X server, which lacked any practical sense due to the useless graphics performance. Microsoft promises to solve this problem. Windows 10 will soon get the hardware acceleration of the GPU with the Linux tools. This refers mainly to the development scenarios, including parallel computing, or machine learning, and artificial intelligence models.

The Hardware acceleration will be available in the Windows 10 Connoisseurs of the preview in the next few months. But the final version should arrive in the fall with the release of Windows 10 Fall 2020 Update. As far as Linux application support is concerned, Microsoft is committed to providing more details at the end of this year.

Let’s remember that this service is a compatibility layer to run Linux apps in Windows 10. The first version of this service was made available in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, which was available in August of 2016. The new version of WSL2 focuses not so much on the basic functionality as well as performance. The new tool should significantly increase the speed of launch and operation of Linux-based applications, as well as significantly reduce the memory usage.

Microsoft previously separated the Linux kernel from Windows to update separately through Windows Update. The company also undertakes to reconstruct the service of SENDING messages from the kernel after each release of a new stable version of the Linux kernel with a long support period, so that users always have the opportunity to take advantage of the latest innovations. The current long-term stable version of Linux is 5.4.