The Arch Linux project has reached an important infrastructure milestone by making its official Windows Subsystem for Linux image fully reproducible.
In simple terms, this means that the image is now built so that it produces exactly the same result every time. If the image is rebuilt later using the same source, it will be identical down to the last bit.
For everyday users, the benefit is mainly about trust and reliability. It becomes much easier to verify that the image you download has not been altered, tampered with, or accidentally changed during the build process.
I use arch btw
So ugh… what’s a windows sub system?
If you haven’t been exposed to it Windows built a WSL feature you can add in using feature add tool. WSL2 is basically now a VM. You the install the Linux distro of your choosing via a few commands.The W11 version uses an internal remote desktop protocol so you can run graphical Linux apps on Windows. (W10 you can with some monkeying around).
Basically many MS devs wanted to access Linux without leaving their Windows environment, plus Microsoft has various Linux systems in use these days, so made sense for them to be able to work directly in it at times.
Lets you run Linux stuff on your Windows machine.
What does fully reproducible mean? Like NixOS fully reproducible or just an LTS version that will have close to 0 installed packages hence “reproducible.”
You Compile and I compile, we get the same binary file.
In simple terms, this means that the image is now built so that it produces exactly the same result every time. If the image is rebuilt later using the same source, it will be identical down to the last bit.
Yes I read that but it doesn’t explain how it produces the exact same image.
Lots of software has non-reproducible build artifacts due to e.g. timestamps being inserted, or due to non-stable algorithms being used during compilation. They presumably managed to remove all sources of randomness from the image they build.
VERY interesting. I don’t know why WSL is the pinning point for this, but I assume M$ needs this and they got paid a bounty (hopefully).
M$ is seriously trying to shift their shit Windows build systems over to WSL for some reason. It makes zero fucking sense. I bet this has something to do with that and replicating the success of GitHub Actions toolkit but a hat on a hat with Windows as the Bottom Bitch.
Pretty sad.
My bet is that Windows kernel will eventually start embracing Linux components.
How’d that work with licensing. Are they gonna open-source the nt kernel?
Probably just do crime and dare someone to take them to court over it
