Why Microsoft Making Linux Apps Run on Windows Isn't Crazy

Soon you'll be able to run Linux apps on Windows thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu version of Linux. The Big Bash For example, Microsoft demonstrated today how developers can use the the popular open source command line interface Bash to manage a web project from a Windows desktop using the exact same commands they'd use on a Linux server. Sure, you can already use Linux apps on Windows by running the entire operating system in what's called a virtual machine, but that can be resource intensive. Many of the tools Linux developers use are already available through Cygwin and other efforts to port open source apps to Windows, but that effort requires each application to be at least partially rewritten. Ubuntu for Windows will use a new piece of technology Microsoft created called Windows Subsystem for Linux, Canonical's Dustin Kirkland said in a blog post.