How does user mapping work in Windows Subsystem for Linux, Linux user = Windows user? Possible to be root in WSL? (if yes, mapped to Windows administrator account?)

There is no user mapping. When you start wsl, you are "root" so you can do whatever you want in the linux subsystem, including creating alternate accounts and su'ing to them. Being root doesn't grant you any particular privileges outside wsl, where you stay with your Windows account rights.

I really don't know who dreamed-up this "subsystem," but as I said before, virtual-machine monitors can give you the real Linux ... running under the auspices of the host operating system (Windows) but entirely isolated from it.

This is not something completely new, Windows NT was providing something similar 21 years ago with the (not particularly useful) POSIX susbsystem. Later it was replaced by Services for Unix. The real novelty is the ELF binary support.

This subsystem is indeed less isolated than a virtual machine and doesn't run at all the Linux kernel, a little like Wine is less isolated than a Windows VM running on Linux and Wine doesn't run the Windows kernel.

It's basically this:

https://www.cygwin.com/

Not really.

Cygwin compiles and run Windows PE executables, not ELF ones. Everything has to be either available from the cygwin repository or recompiled from source. Linux subsystem for Windows doesn't require anything to be recompiled and doesn't provide any software repository because it doesn't need to.

On the other hand, cygwin still has some advantages compared to lsw, it includes an X11 server and it doesn't run in an isolated container. Cygwin processes can see windows processes and interact with them including launching them.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <GENERAL> and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Personally, I have zero interest in this at all. I simply prefer Linux and very much dislike MS's condescending, draconian ways. I will not be assimilated.

I think that the usefulness of subsystems like this went-away when Virtual Machine technology (and the necessary microprocessor architecture advances) became commonplace.

+1.

0110100001100101011011000110110001101111 d29ybGQ=

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...thread-848145/

IMHO, that's the other way around. Container based virtualization is slowly making hardware virtualization less relevant for many use cases. Breaking the kernel barrier like this subsystem does is going a step further.

IMHO if your hardware supports visualization it likely rocks both ways.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Why would you, for example, fire up a VM to convert a directory full of photographs or videos on the command line?
Granted I struggle to think of a compelling use for this but there are times a VM is just too much hassle.

I'm interested to find out whether anyone will think of a good use for this. I'd also be interested to find out what Microsoft thinks people will use it for.

Unavoidably, "virtualization" involves hardware. (I have seen software-only virtualization, and it's called an "emulator.")

A VM monitor might put a console display in a window, but the guest operating system is running in an environment created by special hardware features of the chip that are specifically designed to support virtualization. (It is conceptually similar to the "privileged mode" and "rings" that support user-land in conventional operating systems, only "ever so much more so.")