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Comment by electrotype | Hacker News Reader

I tend to agree with the article. What does WLS2 provides that a regular VM (VirtualBox for example) doesn't? Or a Docker container that I run with "C:" mounted as a volume?

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Better performance, easier to use if you're just using command line stuff, first-party support. Docker's own docs state that it's better to run containers on the WSL2 backend than the old way (a hyper-v vm just for Docker).

Flip the question the other way: what does VirtualBox offer me that I'm not getting from WSL2? I just need Linux command line tools for software development. This feels like the best way to get them on Windows.

It's easy to imagine use-cases when a full blown VM are better; not my current use-cases though.

Ease of use and ease of setup - both of which are important. If I want to setup an Ubuntu VirtualBox, I have to download the VirtualBox software, find the Ubuntu ISO, and run through the setup process. Then I've got to work through any quirks with the setup to get it working seamlessly within the larger windows environment.

With WSL? I hit the install button on the windows app store. That simplicity is important and vastly increases the immediate utility of something like WSL, especially if you just want to try it out.

I'm pretty sure those who would actually use WSL are also able to install a regular VM or Docker.

WSL launches near-instantly, consumes few resources, runs programs very fast, has seamless access to my Windows drive, etc. It's nice and light where a VM is bulky.

It does everything I want as a Linux terminal on Windows. I'm completely indifferent to the stuff mentioned in this blog post, as I'm not a Windows sysadmin.

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