For what it's worth, WSL 2 with VSCode is actually great. Almost all the benefits of Linux (I still miss true tiling window management), with fewer weird driver issues.

That said, I generally just use whatever my company wants me to use, and I haven't worked somewhere that let us use native Linux boxes since 2014.

[–] firelizzard 10 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I have to strongly disagree with you. I've used WSL 2 with VSCode, and I experienced waaaaaaaay more weird broken shit than I ever have running Linux. And even if it weren't for that, it's still not at all worth it IMO because using WSL 2 means every interaction I have with my development environment has to go through a Linux-to-Windows translation layer. I will never use Windows again for anything beyond testing unless I'm forced to.

[–] BatmanAoD 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

🤷 That wasn't my experience, and I used it as my primary dev environment for four years.

It doesn't go through a translation layer, though. WSL 2 has a whole separate kernel. You can even use GUI apps with Wayland.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I have to agree with the commenter above, WSL2 is decent even if you run something uncanny like NixOS. I’ve had it as my primary dev environment for a number of years and it's alright. I am comfortable with a terminal, though, and the only frontends into it I use are neovide and VSCode.

[–] firelizzard 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, any time a Windows process needs to interact with resources within WSL it has to go through a translation layer. I didn’t realize you could run native GUI apps within WSL. But if I’m to the point of installing Wayland and GUI apps in WSL, I’d just wipe Windows and install Linux instead…

[–] BatmanAoD 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, using Windows apps (beyond very simple things like the file manager) to deal with WSL resources, or vice-versa, is generally a bad time; WSL only really shines if you treat it like a separate computer, i.e. a Linux server you have access to. (This is exactly how VSCode's WSL extension does in fact operate.)

And yeah, if I had been given the choice, I definitely would have gone back to native Linux rather than stuck with Windows during the years I used WSL as my daily driver. But that would have been an uphill battle against IT that I wasn't interested in fighting, and I preferred WSL+Windows to MacOS. (Now that I've got an ARM Mac, the hardware advantage is sufficient that I probably wouldn't go back to WSL any time soon, but I still miss having a genuine Linux kernel without needing to run VirtualBox or something.)

[–] firelizzard 2 points 1 month ago

I have mixed feelings about macOS. I grew up using it and I talked my previous employer into getting me a mac for work but I’ve barely used my mac laptop in the last four years, even more so in the last year since I bought a Linux laptop.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I've used it with an x server too, but that requires you to install one of those on the windows side

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