So I’ve recently been interested in doing a complete switch from Windows to Ubuntu, and I’ve been playing around with WSL2 in Windows quite a bit and I have to admit I am pretty impressed with their implementation.
However, one of the reasons I’ve been drawn to Linux these days is the privacy aspect, and I’m looking to get everyone’s thoughts on whether using Linux apps in WSL improves your privacy at all, or do I need to just flat out get off windows to get any sort of privacy benefit. My plan is to eventually get off Windows completely, but I guess I’m wondering if WSL is a good middle ground.
WSL2 is good, but not usable in all scenarios. IIRC, it can’t use systemd services. It is also very slow with file I/O, which is not a problem with small datasets, but some of the git repos I work with are so big that git operations take a couple of minutes to complete in WSL2, but only take a second or so in PowerShell. If you are doing a full backup of your PC with rsync or something like that, it could take days to complete something that would take only 30 minutes or so running in a native Windows shell.
Wish I could say that was an improvement.
It depends on where the files are located. If they are within your WSL distro, then speed is similar to a Linux VM. If you need to do large operations on Windows files from WSL, WSLv1 is a better option.
If I have to use Windows then WSL is fine, otherwise I’d always use Linux.
As far as privacy is concerned, if it’s running on Windows then WSL is not going to help.
I’d suggest that good middle ground would be installing Linux and running Windows in a VM.
Windows has complete access to the WSL file system, so there’s zero privacy improvement. If you’re concerned with privacy, take a look at Arch Linux or Gentoo to install only the components you want, or if you are looking for extreme privacy, check out Tails or possibly QubesOS. Those are probably not the place to start learning about Linux but you mentioned privacy. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. all have telemetry and crap built in so if you want privacy/anonymity you should look at other systems like the ones I mentioned. Have fun, good luck.
I’ll also add to this that WSL is a security nightmare. If something manages to dig its way into your wsl install and add, for example, WINE, there’s no end to the (hidden to your av) mischief it can enact.
Thank you for the reply, that is also news to me about Ubuntu. Since im so used to debian based distros, I think i may just look into just using plain vanilla debian.
Even Debian has it, but at least they seem very transparent about it.
Even Debian?! Ugh…
It’s the best thing windows offers, besides maybe full virtualisation. I use it daily at work, but sharing files is annoying. I’d like to just access the files of the windows system, documents dir should be the windows docs and so on. It somewhat works with symlinks, but it still sucks. Git is slow with these linked dirs too, can’t create Fifos, fileperms suck, and so on.
Thank you very much i think im going to just go with the tried and true dual boot and slowly move to debian.
Good luck. If everything goes well you won’t have to start windows again.
Much rather dual boot or use a VM.
I don’t see how it would improve privacy at all. WSL is just for running Linux shell on Windows right? Your entire OS stack is still Microsoft’s proprietary software.
Personally, I think booting into a linux distro through a USB drive might be more what you’re looking for, but for trying specific applications WSL is great.
W/o a fully functional systemd (or equivalent) implementation, there’s no dbus session; w/o dbus, GUI apps can’t work reliably.
As to various server processes – windows can kill them at will, if it decides that they’re idling.
Peerhaps some cli tools work reliably on wsl2; but then again it’s got very slow i/o for extensive use.
I think a fully fledged vm on Hyper-V is a better bet by far.
WSL is good if you need Linux/GNU tools.
file,grep,find, and the occasional CMake compile are my typical use cases.I wouldn’t consider it anything more than a tool. Try installing Linux in a VM or old computer if you want to try switching.
ok so far I gather that its a no lol
Between using wsl to run apps and using windows, I think there’s little benefit when talking about privacy. Most open source apps have windows version so you can start your migration without formatting, getting used to the ecosystem and when you change, you won’t miss anything.
WSL2 bricked every single one of my VMs, took me a full work day just trying to revert back to WSL1. Might not even matter now since my boot nvme might have just died from heat yesterday.
Can you elaborate on this?
Windows stole his wife.
WSL is not Linux. Has none of the advatanges of Linux. Fuck windows
Well, that’s just not true. WSL indeed is not Linux, but it does have several of the advantages of Linux.
It is not good if you want a home desktop solution, because that’s not what it’s there for. However, if you need to use Windows for something, e.g., at work to have full outlook MS office compatibility (access through the web is not great) but need Linux for dev work then WSL is great.
In short, I’d say WSL is there if you want to do dev work on Linux, but everything else on Windows.
