How Windows 10 and Chrome OS Are Quietly Making 2019 the Year of Desktop Linux
In 2019, both Windows 10 and Chrome OS integrated full Linux kernels—via WSL 2 and native Linux support—delivering dramatic performance gains, Docker compatibility, and the ability to run Linux GUI apps, signaling a major shift toward Linux on the desktop.
WSL 2 integrates a full Linux kernel
Microsoft replaced the original Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with WSL 2. WSL 2 runs the upstream Linux 4.19 kernel inside a lightweight virtual machine that uses a virtualized ext4 file system. This eliminates the translation layer used in WSL 1, resulting in near‑native system‑call performance, faster file‑system I/O, and the ability to run Docker containers directly on Windows without a separate VM.
Kevin Gallo, Microsoft Vice President, noted that the same kernel technology powers Azure VMs, reducing Linux boot time and memory footprint.
Performance gains reported for common development tasks
Craig Loewen, project manager for the Windows development platform, published internal benchmark results. Typical file‑intensive operations such as git clone, npm install, apt update and apt upgrade run 2–5× faster under WSL 2 compared with WSL 1. Extracting a tarball using tar -xf showed up to a 20× speed increase. The exact gain depends on the workload and how it interacts with the file system.
Chrome OS adds universal Linux application support
Chrome OS has always been built on the Linux kernel. In 2018 Google introduced a beta “Linux (Beta)” environment that allowed a limited set of Chromebooks to run Linux command‑line tools and GUI applications via a container. At the 2019 I/O conference Google announced that all Chromebooks—regardless of CPU architecture (Intel, AMD, or ARM)—will receive this capability. Users can open a terminal, install packages with apt, and launch graphical programs such as GIMP or LibreOffice alongside Android apps.
Implications for Linux distributions
The inclusion of a real Linux kernel in both Windows and Chrome OS expands the environments where Linux binaries can run without a dedicated distribution. This may shift some developers toward using WSL 2 or Chrome OS for day‑to‑day work, potentially reducing the market share of traditional desktop distributions such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint. However, the broader Linux ecosystem remains healthy, with continued improvements in hardware support and gaming via Valve’s Proton compatibility layer.
Overall, 2019 marked a significant step toward making the Linux kernel a common denominator across major desktop platforms.
Liangxu Linux
Liangxu, a self‑taught IT professional now working as a Linux development engineer at a Fortune 500 multinational, shares extensive Linux knowledge—fundamentals, applications, tools, plus Git, databases, Raspberry Pi, etc. (Reply “Linux” to receive essential resources.)
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