Do You Still Really Need Windows? Switching To Linux in 2022
by Mike Levin
Sunday, July 31, 2022Livecast from last night moved to this morning because my kid showed interest in doing stuff together, yay! Back to the livestreaming⊠what a great point I left off at. Stay humble getting livestreaming going again. Start simply with .screenrc and see where that goes.
- Youâre stuck on a Windows 10 or 11 laptop
- The world is moving to Linux for all things âdevâ
- Particularly true of machine learning models that use your GPUs
- M$ made sure your WSL2 Linux instance has GPU access (amazing)
- Microsoft made it âeasyâ to get a (non-graphics) Linux Terminal
- Itâs best to use containers under Linux (future-proofing)
- You donât want to be tied to particular hardware instances
- You donât want to be forced to use cloud services (you have places to run code)
- In those containers, the first skill to learn is controlling Linux Services called daemons (easier than you think).
- The âscreenâ program is the way to monitor your âpythonâ running services.
Today we talk about âplaces to run codeâ and all the stupid labels of what our setup (on our laptop) really is.
- Show how to know youâre in a âgnu screen terminal sessionâ (vs. direct)
When you install WSL you get the unified Windows Terminal installed I believe automatically when you wsl âinstall. This functionally eliminates the need for 3rd party terminals. The âUnix-like Terminalâ is now just a standard part of Windows. This is a huge new reality. This shows us probably:
- Windows as you know it is going away (~5 years)
- DOS Command Prompt will go away
- PowerShell 5.x will go away
- BASH Shell takes over the world (again)
- Show .screenrc âinstalledâ to tell âscreen sessionsâ from not.
What I am not (who I am not targeting):
- âClassingâ developer or sysadmin or devops
What I am (who I am targeting):
- People who consider âtechâ as just general literacy (like reading, writing & math)
What?
Yes. Since Unix-like OSes won, tech like this is general literacy. Just like knowing English is knowing read/write, knowing *nix is knowing generic pluming of tech for much broader reasons (better life) than being a classic developer, sysamins or devops.
Everyone
Who shouldnât know âgenericâ tech. There is generic tech now that the proprietary stuff is on its way out.
Youâre going to hear a lot about Docker. Hype.
Why not âjust use dockerâ for this? And why not Docker from Windows for even more simplicity?