I'm seriously considering moving back to Windows from Arch. I miss some software. Can you give some downsides of WSL2 so I know you're being impartial (I am) and to help me make a decision. I wasted a few days with WSL1 and don't want to repeat that.
You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it).
Whilst you can read /mnt/c/ you can't read virtual file systems such as Google drive stream /mnt/g/ is just empty.
You need to do a bit of fuckery like pinning your ssh-agent to a known file socket and test this in your bash/zsh startup - not a biggie since you arent starting this off your WM
No X support - there are third party x viewers though but not officially endorsed. So no apps like xkeynav and xkill.
None of the intellij ecosystem have WSL support - sure you can set the terminal to be use wsl.exe but stuff like using your WSL2 distro's openssh config or using the agent running in your WSL2 etc... arent there or coming, VSCode is lightyears ahead in this department due to the way its modelled. Sadly intellij team aren't thinking in the same way of the vscode team, so instead of proxying through a remote demon they are thinking of doing something like reading //wsl$/distro/home/you/.ssh/config instead, hacking WSL support in their ssh/git bits
Need to set max memory in wslconfig too - not so well documented - otherwise your VM will just balloon to fill up all your RAM and windows and windows app will start swapping
> You need to be on the insider programmer which forces telemetry and means you have a PITA windows style upgrade every other week (and the nagging associated with it).
FWIW you can upgrade to the Fast Ring version of Windows that gets you WSL 2 and then switch to the Slow Ring that only gives you updates every month or so.
It's all hacked in on intellij platform and reading their youtrack that their plan - each plugin bakes in WSL knowledge, where as VSCode basically launches a remote command proxy so it works the same weather WSL2 or a local vbox with ssh or a remote VPS and plugins dont need to change (or do so in a minor away). More an IntelliJ rant I guess
WSL2 aren't shipped with systemd (or any other init processes) out of the box. So you, as an Arch user especially, will have much trouble managing Linux daemons.
If you are an embedded dev keep in mind that USB or any native devices on WSL2 is not supported.
If you are a web dev keep in mind that localhost is not available so that you need to figure out the IP address of WSL2.
How on earth did you manager to fit Microsoft into this? Also, this outrage culture is exactly what everyone here including you practices as long as Trump is the guy on the other side. No proofs, no actual statements, just CNN soundbytes and orange man bad, impich nao. Remember you reap what you sow.
>How on earth did you manager to fit Microsoft into this
Good point. I intended it merely as emphasis to the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish point, but apparently it ended up being more of a red herring...? I'll take extra care the next time.
>Also, this outrage culture is exactly what everyone here including you
Don't worry, this forum isn't entirely a single-minded and single-channel tribe. Albeit let's not detract further with risky subjects, shall we? :-)
The author gushes over scala but completely neglects to mention scala.js :) (I sincerely hope he's seen it, since he seems to be a js dev). scala.js is right now the only way I use scala- after I dropped scala for backend.
