What Can BASH on Windows Do?
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@Dashrender said:
If MS dumped their underlying system/APIs, etc and started using the Linux kernel or FreeBSD, then sure - those CLI commands you're used to should and probably would work.
No, it would be exactly the same. The use of UNIX here is irrelevant.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I can't agree that it's crippled.
If you say you are giving me a new shell for windows and then tell me it can't work as a shell ... isn't that crippled? BASH isn't able to do anything it is meant to do. That's very, very crippled.
I didn't hear anyone say they are giving a new shell for windows - so that's the first fallacy.
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@Dashrender said:
I didn't hear anyone say they are giving a new shell for windows - so that's the first fallacy.
That's what I heard everywhere. BASH for Windows. BASH on Windows. That's what those terms imply. BASH is a shell, BASH for Windows would be a shell FOR Windows. But this is not. This is a shell for a fake environment.
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Ars Technica used that wording, for example.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
To make BASH work, MS would have to create all of their own versions of those admin utilities that would understand the MS way of doing things.. for example - creating users. I definitely don't expect the BASH (Ubuntu) create user command to understand how to build a Windows user - that's why PowerShell was made, MS build the CLI tools there that know how to poke and prod Windows when it comes to making users.
There is no BASH command for that. I'm unclear what you are thinking here. Are you thinking that Linux commands are INSIDE of BASH? BASH is just the shell, NOT the utilities. All of those utilities already exist. What would they have to create that does not already exist?
Oh, so you what? want to run PowerShell commands in Bash? why is this useful?
See this is where I am totally lost.. what is the different between BASH and KRoN and PowerShell? what makes them different?
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As did TechCrunch.
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@Dashrender said:
Oh, so you what? want to run PowerShell commands in Bash? why is this useful?
Of course, its useful because people know BASH and it is easy to use.
Microsoft has two shells already and all of the utilities made. We want to run them with BASH. That's what BASH on Windows means.
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@Dashrender said:
See this is where I am totally lost.. what is the different between BASH and KRoN and PowerShell? what makes them different?
Syntax, features and behaviour.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Unlike Macs, Windows is it's own system - Macs are based on FreeBSD, so those commands were already build to work with BSD, so nothing needed to be changed.
WHAT COMMANDS???? BASH's commands are things like "for" and "do". I have no idea what commands you are talking about.
Commands like LS and RD and MD, etc - but I see what you are saying. .those are just executables.. they aren't part of the shell - so again.. what the heck is a shell? what makes one better than another?
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Unlike Macs, Windows is it's own system - Macs are based on FreeBSD, so those commands were already build to work with BSD, so nothing needed to be changed.
WHAT COMMANDS???? BASH's commands are things like "for" and "do". I have no idea what commands you are talking about.
Commands like LS and RD and MD, etc - but I see what you are saying. .those are just executables.. they aren't part of the shell - so again.. what the heck is a shell? what makes one better than another?
Right. The shell is the REPL from the programming language that lets you run commands in real time.
What's odd is that your reaction is this way... but most people see the shell as so important that they mistake one OS for another based on the shell alone!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
See this is where I am totally lost.. what is the different between BASH and KRoN and PowerShell? what makes them different?
Syntax, features and behaviour.
Why would syntax be different?
I don't know what you mean by features?
and behavior - ok that one I understand - in Windows for example you get the are you sure you want to delete but in BASH if there is no error you get no feedback. -
@Dashrender said:
Why would syntax be different?
Because different languages have different syntax. Ever used two different programming languages? That's all shells are.
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@Dashrender said:
I don't know what you mean by features?
History, command completion, short cuts, loops... all the things that different languages have and their REPLs.
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@Dashrender said:
and behavior - ok that one I understand - in Windows for example you get the are you sure you want to delete but in BASH if there is no error you get no feedback.
While that is true, that's only sometimes the shell. If something is asking, likely that is the app itself.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I don't know what you mean by features?
History, command completion, short cuts, loops... all the things that different languages have and their REPLs.
http://mugurel.sumanariu.ro/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/bash.png
ctrl+r is the greatest thing ever.
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@johnhooks said:
ctrl+r is the greatest thing ever.
Can't possibly up vote enough!
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I also do ctrl+d every time I'm using the cli on Windows, and I look like an idiot. Never fails.
I noticed that image says ctrl+d is delete. It's always logout for me, not sure what they're talking about. It is old though.
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I believe its actually called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, all the people calling it Bash on Windows are wrong and giving a wrong meaning for many. Bash doesn't run on Windows ala Cygwin, bash is running on a ubuntu image that talks to WLS
https://i.imgur.com/YYzbt5A.png
Here is a video of some of the things you can do with it.
As the video shows, it is mainly targetted at developers.
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@Romo said:
I believe its actually called Bash on Ubuntu on Windows, all the people calling it Bash on Windows are wrong and giving a wrong meaning for many. Bash doesn't run on Windows ala Cygwin, bash is running on a ubuntu image that talks to WLS
Almost. BASH runs on the WLS which is sometimes confusingly called "Ubuntu on Windows" as a product name. You have to be VERY careful, this is where brilliant marketing people come in.... it's NAME is "Ubuntu on Windows" but there is no Linux kernel so it is neither Linux nor Ubuntu running, ever. There is no Ubuntu running on Windows, just something with a name meant to imply that.
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@scottalanmiller, it appears to be ubuntu userspace. They are running the same Ubuntu ELF binaries only on WLS, wouldn't that allow it to be called ubuntu?
