Windows Subsystem for Freebsd

Enabling WSL isn't the same as going through VMWare Workstation or Virtual Box installation, and naturally paying for the commercial features.

The real killer is Excel. The web version has zero support for crucial tools like Power Query or Power Pivot, which are essential for any modern data analysis. You can't run, edit, or even create serious VBA/Macros, and advanced data validation and conditional formatting are stripped down to the bone.

For Word, if you're in law or academia, forget it. Features like Table of Authorities or Table of Figures are either completely missing or so simplified they are useless. Even the ability to handle standard APA or MLA citation styles is heavily cut down compared to the desktop app.

And for PowerPoint? You lose access to serious third party add-ins, and the granular control over animations and timers that professionals need just isn't there.

So, while the web version might be fine for a quick edit of a simple file, if you need to reliably work with a complex document from a Windows-based company, the compatibility issues and missing features will force you into a desktop app eventually. If you're going to be forced into a desktop experience anyway, you might as well bite the bullet and go LibreOffice for its feature completeness on Linux/FreeBSD.

It's a stronger bet than relying on Microsoft's cut-down web versions.

In fairness to them, they've been using Windows and Office a lot in the last ~30 years, so asking them to abandon all that stuff isn't a trivial endeavor, but my point is that

Maybe you'll luck out and get something cross-platform or online, but 90% of the time if a client is sending a document, it's going to be something from Office (or rarely, Pages).

Spreadsheets can run scripts, and important ones you need to be able to run accurately, and not just hope your alternative office suite works.

I hate it, but it is what it is.

Not trying to diminish your struggle, and if it didn't work for you then obviously you shouldn't use it.

I don't own a Gamecube controller anymore, but I haven't noticed much lag with a wireless Switch Pro controller with Dolphin. I played through Tony Hawk's Underground and Tony Hawk's American wasteland on my laptop a few months ago using Dolphin, and as far as I could tell my terrible scores had nothing to do with lag, and I was able to finish them.

Definitely have had issues with Nvidia drivers though. It cost me an entire weekend getting one working a few months ago and I didn't enjoy that process.

It is because there are way more games that work than games that do not work at all. Also in general the "golden path" is really an all AMD PC (since that is where most of the testing and open development goes).

That said sometimes you may need to tinker/tweak things but this applies to Windows too, hence the existence of pcgamingwiki (which recently has added Linux info, though that is still dwarfed by the Windows info). I've been gaming on Linux for a few years now and was gaming on Windows before that and i do not find Linux any worse at all when it comes to getting stuff working (this was certainly not the case before ~2021 or so though).

The Legion GO being the most prime example[0].

Some games work better on Linux, some worse, but largely comparable[1].

I don’t believe that reviewers are paid to promote this view.

[0]: https://youtu.be/CJXp3UYj50Q?si=QWx6DRTQqzXnwfPL

[1]: https://www.noobfeed.com/articles/steamos-vs-windows-10-pc-b...

Even if true, not having great support for laptops doesn't mean "no one uses FreeBSD". Obviously it's supported by essentially all server hardware and is used there, as well as many routers and the Playstation.

I have isolated jails with their own vNics running a nested bHyve VM instance inside which inside you then host a jail with its own vnic.

If something jumps out of the they are dead locked to the VM, if they jump out of that, they're trapped in a jail.

It is stupid in that it's not really any kind of subsystem, it's just a vm. VMs have their uses, but it's basically just an app.

The reason hardware such as my usb serial example (or any serial) worked on wsl1 was because it actually was a subsystem.

So making a better WSL on syscall layer, which NT kernel is designed for, is not only behind a technical effort wall, but also behind a big red tape.

The syscall way is just a form of emulation that you have to contain and it becomes a pain to keep up to date. VMs will use more ressource but at least they are disposable and only require a good virtualization layer on the host.

Funnily enough, with time, Microsoft might be able to run all the OSs inside their own OS. Of course, that won't happen for something like macOS but that would be hilarious.

That wasn’t the original primary reason for it… Windows NT began life as NT OS/2… at first, an evolved OS/2 API was going to be its primary API… then as Windows 3.x took off and the IBM-Microsoft relationship further soured, the OS/2 API was downgraded to a backward compatibility afterthought, and eventually (in Windows XP) dropped entirely.

And because they weren’t even sure what the primary API was going to be at first… and the whole idea of multiple OS “personalities” was all the rage - IBM’s Mach-based Workplace OS sought to unify AIX and OS/2 (and they even talked about extending that to OS/400), Taligent (IBM-Apple joint venture) had similar objectives - so it is understandable they made this API flexibility a focus of their early plans

And the guy they hired as technical lead in developing NT, Dave Cutler - had come from DEC, which had the very real problem of selling two largely incompatible operating systems (Unix and OpenVMS) - and they also sought to unify them through multiple personalities, as their next generation operating system MICA which would merge Unix and OpenVMS, which Cutler was working on, until DEC management decided to cancel the project, and Cutler went to Microsoft to do the same thing there

I've seen many customer requested changes go into various products at Microsoft as having requested such changes.