hello my name is gary sims and this is
gary explained how the unthinkable has
happened
in that microsoft has launched its own
version of
linux microsoft linux we could call it
it's actually called
cbl mariner now what does that mean is
windows gonna move
more towards linux are they going to
replace the internals of windows
with the linux kernel what about the
windows subsystem villains is that going
to move away from
ubuntu and other popular distributions
to microsoft's owner's distribution
what does it all mean well if you want
to find out more please
let me explain
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okay so microsoft quietly released its
own linux distribution called cbl
mariner so that's
common based linux and mariner is the
code name for this
v1 release it's up there on github
however it isn't quite exactly what we
were
thinking first of all you don't even get
an iso file you can't
download it put it onto a flash drive
burn it onto a
dvd if you've still got dvd that is and
boot up another machine
if you want to do anything with it you
have to start by building some parts of
it yourself
so it's not for the faint of hearted
however if you are used to building
uh linux things if you're used to
installing packages uh running make
files and
that then you can do it i did it takes
maximum about an hour
probably less that was my first attempt
at it and once you've done that what you
can get is an iso file
and you can get a virtual disk which you
can use inside things like hyper-v
now the key thing about this version of
linux is it's no gui
there's no desktop included no kde no no
no anything else it's purely aimed at
servers
and in fact the repository of all those
packages that you could install
all the there are no gui stuff in there
at all you can't just say okay well
let's install the desktop
it's not even there and that's because
cbl mariner is actually designed
for the cloud when you want to run up a
quick virtual machine
something inside you know say docker or
kubernetes
or something on an iot device then this
is the way to go
it runs up this very very quick compact
lightweight
version of linux in fact i have it
running in less than half a gigabyte of
memory
and it shows its initial boot up it's
running only in 70
80 megabytes so it's very very good for
spinning up microservices very very good
for running
on the edge however it does open up a
bunch of questions so let's look at
those questions
uh one at a time first of all will
microsoft
make cbl mariner available in a more
general fashion
at the moment no it doesn't look like
that is obviously a conscious decision
to not even release
a dot iso file or a file that you could
download
onto a flash drive they deliberately
wanted to make it a bit more
abstracted however i don't think it will
be long before
somebody starts to put together a
repository where you can just download
the latest build and they have a kind of
a server that doesn't nightly build or
something like that
that kind of thing tends to happen
they've done that kind of thing with
visual studio code
so i'm pretty sure that kind of thing
will happen if someone takes an interest
in it
they find that the way microsoft put
this version links together is kind of
interesting
then that will happen at the moment it's
not there but it's not that hard
to imagine that's what's going to happen
now will microsoft
move windows over to a more linux
type of kernel the answer is definitely
not there seems to be a misunderstanding
that
somehow the linux kernel is magic and
other kernels like windows kernel
is rubbish that's just completely not
true the windows kernel has been in
development for
decades with some very very talented
people working on it
working very hard on it and there's no
advantage to
moving windows uh over to a linux kernel
or replacing part of it
with linux there's just no advantage in
that whatsoever however there would be a
possible advantage in actually making
uh cbl common base linux available
for windows subsystem for linux that
could be something i would see
in the future so that you could very
easily then just get hold of
the windows substitutes running on your
pc and when you start it out you're not
setting up ubuntu you're not starting up
another flavor
you're starting up microsoft's cbl
version
and of course that will some people will
now say oh you see that's their thing of
extend
and extinguish and all that kind of
stuff from like 25 years ago some people
just seem to live in the past all the
time
though there is the red aspect of it if
of course they make cbl linux they're
kind of the default for all of the stuff
that happens in cloud services
for the default linux that you get on
your pc if you're using the windows
subsystem for linux then of course that
will make
microsoft's foothold into the linux
marketplace into the minix arena much
much stronger so
that would make a good business sense
for them because they can become known
as not only the provider of windows but
also the provider of good cloud services
based on linux i suppose the final
question is will microsoft ever release
a desktop version
of linux that will work like windows
does
but actually it's using linux of course
the answer is no
we can see that microsoft are making a
big push now with windows 11
they've laid out their their stall
they've said they'd have their plan this
is the way we're going
and linux on the desktop does not
feature in in that way forward
we're seeing you know windows 11 is also
available for
uh snapdragon devices i've already got
the preview version running on my
surface pro x we're seeing the
competition
uh with the new apple max heating up
with arm processors and so on so
that's the direction everyone's going
and microsoft are suddenly certainly not
going to just say
well here's a linux version that looks
like windows and we've put some nice
icons on it and look you'll be you'll be
no that's not going to happen so don't
expect microsoft's desktop version of
linux
anytime uh well within my lifetime
probably but though
anytime in the next five to ten years
who knows what can happen after that
but certainly for the moment this is
aimed at cloud services iot devices
devices are running on the edge
it's lightweight doesn't take up much
memory and uh very good for as i said
docker
and containers and kubernetes
microservices
all that kind of stuff that's a thing
that microsoft are aiming at
okay that's it my name is gary sims this
is gary explains i really hope you
enjoyed this quick look
at common base linux from microsoft
microsoft linux
but not as we know it jim if you did
enjoy this video please do give it a
thumbs up also don't forget to follow me
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i'll see you in the next one
[Music]
you