Bash Shell or Bash on Ubuntu on Windows allows users run most Linux command-line tools, directly on Windows, UNMODIFIED, without needing an entire Linux virtual machine. This feature addition was first introduced in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (AU). At the time of release, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lacked a lot of features and was known to have many incompatibilities, especially with popular developer tools like node.js, Java, etc.
However, over the past year, Microsoft has been receiving continuous and valuable feedback from real users about what WSL needed to run, what worked, and what didn’t, etc. This has helped the team on a massive scale and as a result, during the Creators Update development, the native Bash Shell received hundreds of fixes and improvements.
Here is a quick run down of some of the major features and improvements:
- More compatibility
- Ubuntu 16.04 support
- Ifconfig & network connection enumeration support
- Ping & ICMP network support
- File change notification support (INOTIFY)
- Windows <-> Linux Interop
- UNIX and Netlink Socket improvements
- TCP socket & IPv6 improvements
- Miscellaneous WSL Improvements
- Windows Console & Command-Line Improvements
Of course, the points above do not thoroughly justify the depth of the work the Bash team has put in, but it is certainly a good sign of positivity and continued support for Bash on Windows.
If you using Bash on Windows, you should definitely check out the official blog post for a detailed overview of each new feature or improvement.
And, if you are new to Bash on Ubuntu on Windows 10, this Channel 9’s demo video is your first step to get started.
