Re: [PLUG] Microsoft grafts (most) Linux commands onto Windows

[Walt Mankowski via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On Sat, Jun 06, 2026 at 08:33:20PM -0400, InterLinked via plug wrote:
> On 6/5/2026 1:48 PM, Walt Mankowski via plug wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 04, 2026 at 04:53:25PM -0400, InterLinked via plug wrote:
> > > On 6/4/2026 10:07 AM, jeffv via plug wrote:
> > > > Grep this: Microsoft grafts (most) Linux commands onto Windows
> > > > 
> > > > https://www.theregister.com/os-platforms/2026/06/03/grep-this-microsoft-grafts-most-linux-commands-onto-windows/5250796
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Coreutils serves over 75 Unix commands in Windows and PowerShell command
> > > > lines
> > > Unix commands like grep, gcc, bash, perl, etc. have been available natively
> > > on Windows for a quarter-century now, see:
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Services_for_UNIX
> > > 
> > > The UNIX subsystem is built into Windows (well, the more premium editions of
> > > it, like Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate); the tools themselves have to be
> > > separately downloaded, but it's a simple install. I believe most of the GNU
> > > utilities are included.
> > > 
> > > Then, you can run tools like grep, sed, etc. from Command Prompt. No
> > > emulators, virtualization, etc. is being used:
> > > 
> > > C:\Users\interlinked>grep
> > > usage: grep [-abcEFGHhIiLlnoPqRrSsUvwx] [-A num] [-B num [-C[num]]
> > >          [-e pattern] [-f file] [--binary-files=value] [--context[=num]]
> > >          [--line-buffered] [pattern] [file ...]
> > > 
> > > Not exactly the same thing, but the extent to which "grep available on
> > > Windows in 2026" and even things like WSL have been "revolutionary" have
> > > always been overhyped, IMO.
> > I used cygwin on my Windows boxes for a long time. It was fine in that
> > it gave you a Unix-style command line where you could do things like
> > grep files on your Windows filesystem in a familiar way.
> 
> I wasn't talking about cygwin, which is a 3rd party install. This was/is
> 100% native Windows stuff.

The wikipedia article you linked to says the final release of these
tools was way back in 2004. Are they still available? Why would you
want to run them when options like cygwin and WSL2 are available?

> > The nice thing about WSL2 is that it feels much more like you're
> > running a proper Linux distribution on a VM on your Windows box. I'm
> > installing normal Ubuntu packages and can run X11 apps. (OK, the only
> > one I ever run is Emacs. I'm sure there are some that don't work.)
> 
> Yeah, I get that, though I've never wanted to do that myself.
> I use separate Linux VMs (not running on my PC, but some other server) for
> most of my development and other *nix tasks.
> Aside from simple things like grep, I don't find most of the *nix tools
> actually that useful on Windows myself.

We have plenty of Linux boxes we can run jobs on at work. But for
desktops work is a Windows shop. Sometimes it's nice to run jobs on
your local box instead of the remote one. It's connected to OneDrive,
for instance, which the Linux boxes aren't.

> > It sounds to me that the nice thing about this announcement isn't that
> > the tools were never available, but rather that people won't need to
> > install them since they'll be installed by default.
> 
> The UNIX subsystem was built into Windows, though the tools were a separate
> download from the Microsoft site (now accessible via the Wayback Archive).
> 
> > Plus they'll be
> > officially supported by Microsoft.
> 
> UNIX subsystem was officially supported too.

Fine. but that system is over 20 years old.

> > This will likely make it easier for Windows admins to start using POSIX tools in Powershell, which sounds like a good thing.
> 
> I'm not sure how this would make anything easier that the previous methods
> didn't already accomplish.
> The fact that this new way only works on Windows 11 alone probably won't
> make it easier to do *anything*.

Well, for one thing, these new POSIX tools will be built for
Powershell, which is a very different and much more powerful
environment than the Command Prompt. Presumably they'll be built to
interact with other Powershell utilities. I only know a tiny bit of
Powershell, but one big difference between it and Unix shells is that
pipelines work with objects instead of streams of bytes, which allows
them to interact with .NET objects.
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