For majority of consumers who are not comfortable with Linux, this news might not mean much but for those who have embraced the operating system especially developers, it is a big deal. Over at the Build 2016 keynote earlier today, Microsoft has announced that Bash shell is officially coming to Windows 10.
Made possible through a collaboration with Canonical which is the company behind Ubuntu Linux, it is not a virtual machine implementation. Instead, it is indeed a native Ubuntu binaries running on Windows 10 – which is something that is most likely would not be approved by the old Microsoft before Satya Nadella.
This also means that users no longer need to rely on third-party substitute such as Cygwin. However, Microsoft has pointed out that it is still a work in progress and is designed as a tool for developers but not meant for server workloads. Not to forget, Bash and Linux tools are not able to run Windows apps or tools, and vice-versa.
Interested users should look forward for the arrival of Bash shell and Ubuntu on Windows 10 later this year as part of the upcoming Anniversary Update for the operating system. For the time being, you can learn more about them through this excellent demo.
