[Info-vax] RMS intro

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/3/2024 8:31 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> In article <un293n$2tfib$1 at dont-email.me>,
> Arne Vajhøj  <arne at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>> On 1/2/2024 2:25 PM, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>>> And, in spite of the fact that it was supposed to be implementing a well-
>>>> documented API, with plenty of example source code to refer to, they
>>>> still
>>>> couldn’t get WSL1 to work right. So they had to chuck it away and
>>>> bring in
>>>> a proper Linux kernel instead.
>>>
>>> I didn't do anything other than "play" with WSL1, but I thought
>>> performance was the issue.
>>>
>>> I think I did more with MKS Toolkit and Cygwin than WSL.
>>
>> Note that Cygwin and WSL does completely different things.
>>
>> Cygwin:
>>
>> *nix and/or Windows source--Cygwin toolchain-->Windows executable
>>
>> WSL:
>>
>> *nix source--Linux toolchain-->Linux executable
> 
> More like:

Less like that.

>            "cygwin executes Windows executables that are built
> from Unix-y sources using compatibility libraries,

Cygwin does not execute executables. Cygwin produces regular
Windows executables that are executed by Windows line any other
Windows executable.

And as I described above then Cygwin can build both *nix source and
Windows source (and hybrids of those) not just *nix sources.

>                                                   while WSL1
> executes Linux-branded ELF binaries using a compatibility layer
> in the Windows kernel."

WSL execute standard Linux binaries - not something just Linux branded.
And being ELF binaries is not sufficient - it has to be Linux binaries.

>                                 Toolchains are only tangentially
> relevant.

Toolschains are really the only thing that matters.

WSL exist to allow developers to run Linux toolchains.

Arne