Re: Request for Debian Subsystem for Windows like
On Thu, 27 Oct 2022 20:54:16 +0200
didier gaumet <didier.gaumet@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dan's answer is spot on but I supposed Suman would appreciate more
> details :-)
>
> From my point of view:
Let me add to this.
Microsoft has an OS, Windows. It also has several application programs,
of which Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the Office suite of programs
are well known examples. Back when I worked for Microsoft, I observed a
few things:
* The application programs took advantage of OS APIs that were not
documented to the outside world. This gave the Microsoft applications
a competitive edge.
* Back in the day, application writers would disassemble MS-DOS and
find and use hidden undocumented APIs. Of course there is no
guarantee that a hidden API will work in the next version of DOS.
Except that major application vendors would put pressure on Microsoft
to carry those hidden APIs into future versions of DOS. And Windows
on top of DOS (Widows 95, et al.). And into Widows NT, etc.
Furthermore, sometimes those hidden APIs were buggy. Which meant the
successor code had to carry those bugs forward.
* Things that appeared to be applications might in fact be extensions
to the OS. Case in point, Microsoft Internet Explorer. To install
Microsoft's C compiler required installing Internet Explorer. Why?
because there were OS extensions in Internet Explorer, in addition to
a web browser.
So far as I know (it's been a while) those hidden and buggy APIs are
still there. Which means that a truly complete LSW would also have to
carry them over. Good luck writing code to emulate that stuff!
My advice, if you must run Windows applications (I don't), is run well
behaved applications only, which includes applications that don't call
hidden APIs. I have no idea if there is a test suite for well behaved
Windows applications, but wine should be a decent approximation of one.
--
Does anybody read signatures any more?
https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Reply to: