This year was another interesting year for Microsoft with continuing to make more of their software projects open-source, adding more Unix/Linux-like features to Windows, continuing to advance Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), keeping up with maintenance on their Azure Linux distribution, and other unexpected open-source/Linux surprises.

The past few years it has been fascinating to see the various open-source moves by Microsoft, their continued contributions to projects like the Linux kernel and Mesa and systemd, and similar maneuvering by Microsoft across the Linux/open-source landscape where it makes business sense to them.

For those wanting to catch-up on all of the interesting Microsoft Linux/open-source related announcements from the year, below is a look at the most viewed Microsoft stories on Phoronix for 2024. It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does with Linux/open-source in 2025.

[1]Microsoft Rolling Out New Windows Subsystem For Linux "WSL" Features For 2024

Given Microsoft's recent BUILD conference, Microsoft has announced a number of sizable updates to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

[2]Microsoft Confirms Bringing Sudo For Windows, Is Open-Source Too

There's been recent reports that Microsoft is bringing sudo to Windows as discovered in recent Windows 11 Insider previews. This was briefly confirmed today by Microsoft in a since-removed blog post as well as noting that it's open-source.

[3]Microsoft's WSL2 Transitions To Linux 6.6 LTS Kernel

The kernel powering Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) has long been using the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel while finally it's now upgraded past that aging long-term support kernel and onto the current Linux 6.6 LTS series.

[4]Microsoft Helping Out In Making The Linux Kernel Language More Inclusive

With time Microsoft's Linux kernel contributions have extended beyond just the initial business focus on Hyper-V support and other needs for Azure as well as around Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to more general contributions. Microsoft has also hired more key Linux contributors along with stakes in other projects like systemd. Earlier this week were patches from a Microsoft engineer working out Rust language improvements for the Linux kernel while now in ending out the holiday weekend are patches for making the Linux kernel language more inclusive.

[5]Microsoft Offloads The Mono Project To Wine

Coming as a surprise this afternoon is Microsoft deciding to contribute the Mono Project to be stewarded by the Wine development community.

[6]Microsoft Enables DNS Tunneling By Default For WSL - More Reliable Networking

Microsoft is rolling out WSL 2.2.1 to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) users with more reliable networking support, hang fixes, and other improvements.

[7]Linux 6.9 Makes A Change To Satisfy Microsoft For EFI x86 Shim Loader Signing

The EFI updates were merged today for the ongoing Linux 6.9 merge window. This cycle the EFI kernel code is seeing enhancements for confidential computing as well as for satisfy Microsoft's requirements for getting them to sign the x86 shim loader again for UEFI Secure Boot handling.

[8]Microsoft Engineer Sends Rust Linux Kernel Patches For In-Place Module Initialization

What a time we live in where Microsoft not only continues contributing significantly to the Linux kernel but doing so to further flesh out the design of the Linux kernel's Rust programming language support. A previously unimaginable combination of Microsoft, the Rust programming language, and the Linux kernel.

[9]Microsoft Makes An Interesting Improvement To Kernel Modules With Linux 6.13

Sent out on Tuesday was the modules pull request for Linux 6.13 that have some low-level improvements but it noted that the biggest kernel modules highlight wasn't in that pull request itself but had been added by way of the memory management pull. This was a change by a Microsoft engineer around caching of kernel modules into huge pages.

[10]Microsoft's WSL 2.3.11 Brings "Hundreds Of New Kernel Modules" & New Features

Microsoft today published a new version of their Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in pre-release form.

[11]Microsoft Updates Cascadia Code: Its Open-Source Font For Developers

Back in 2019 Microsoft open-sourced Cascadia Code as a font designed for terminals and code editors. The goals are similar to that of Intel's more recent One Mono as another open-source font for developers. It's been three years since the last update to the Cascadia Code open-source font while today rolled out version 2404.23.

[12]Microsoft Open-Sources MS-DOS 4.0 Under MIT License

After publishing open-source versions of MS-DOS years ago for versions 1.25 and 2.0, Microsoft and IBM have now announced that MS-DOS 4.0 has been open-sourced under an MIT license.

[13]Microsoft Ending Support For Windows Subsystem For Android

Microsoft announced today they will be winding down their support for Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA), which is similar to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) but was designed to run Android apps from the Amazon Appstore atop Windows 11.

[14]Microsoft Rebranding CBL-Mariner Linux Distribution To "Azure Linux"

Microsoft's in-house Linux distribution used for a variety of purposes had been known as CBL-Mariner for "Common Base Linux" while now it appears to be in the process of transitioning to Azure Linux.

[15]Microsoft Releases Azure Linux 3.0 Preview

Microsoft has published its first tagged preview of the upcoming Azure Linux 3.0 operating system.

[16]LinkedIn Migrates Their Servers From CentOS To Azure Linux

LinkedIn has replaced CentOS as their default server operating system choice with Azure Linux to power all of their server needs.

[17]Wow! Microsoft DirectX Adopting SPIR-V Moving Forward

Well this is a hell of a surprise... Microsoft announced today that DirectX will be adopting SPIR-V as the interchange format of the future. Microsoft's DirectX 12 will accept shaders compiled to SPIR-V, the intermediate representation defined by The Khronos Group and commonly associated with Vulkan / OpenGL / OpenCL drivers.

[18]Linux On The Snapdragon X1 Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, But Critical Features Missing

A Qualcomm engineer has posted the Linux kernel patches for adding the DeviceTree to support the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 devices powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 SoCs. This allows Linux to run on these new Snapdragon X1-powered Microsoft laptops but as with the other devices there are a number of support caveats that for most end-users will be a showstopper.

[19]Microsoft Continued Advancing WSL2, Mesa & Its In-House Linux Distro In 2023

While years ago it was hard envisioning Microsoft contributing significantly to the Linux kernel or Mesa 3D graphics driver stack, maintaining its own in-house Linux distribution, or publishing so much open-source software, these days it's par for the course thanks to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), Linux dominating Azure instances, etc. Over the course of 2023, Microsoft continued investing in various Linux/open-source efforts that benefit their cause.

[20]Microsoft Engineer Ports EXT2 File-System Driver To Rust

Back in late 2023 were Rust abstractions for the Linux kernel's Virtual File-System (VFS) code. Those patches by Microsoft engineer Wedson Almeida Filho have now seen a second iteration posted... In addition to various improvements to the Rust VFS bindings, the new patches bring a work-in-progress EXT2 Rust file-system driver.

[21]Microsoft Continues "Demikernel" Development LibOS For Kernel-Bypass I/O

A Microsoft Research project that was quietly announced a few years ago to some fanfare but not hearing much about since has been Demikernel as their library OS architecture for kernel-bypass I/O. A Phoronix reader brought up Demikernel this week and while it hasn't been talked about much in recent years it does remain under active development with the most recent commits as of hours ago.

[22]UWP'ed Mesa Running On Microsoft Xbox, Allowing For New Game Ports With OpenGL

Recently there has been out-of-tree successes on adapting Mesa to work on Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform (UWP). UWP is also used by the Microsoft Xbox Series X/S game consoles and in turn paired with the Microsoft D3D12 driver work within Mesa for allowing OpenGL and other APIs atop D3D12, is allowing new games/software to be ported to the Xbox.

[23]Red Hat & Microsoft Bringing RHEL To WSL

The latest Linux distribution being brought to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with Microsoft's blessing is none other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux... Microsoft and Red Hat jointly announced today that RHEL is coming to WSL.

[24]Microsoft Announces Open-Source Hyperlight For Embedded VMM Within Linux/Windows Apps

Microsoft last month announced the open-source Rust-written OpenHCL for running confidential Intel TDX and AMD SEV-SNP virtual machines. Today Microsoft is announcing another interesting open-source, Rust-based project in the virtualization space: Hyperlight. Microsoft's Hyperlight project is an embed-friendly, lightweight VMM for use within Linux and Windows applications.

[25]Microsoft Advances Its Open-Source Font For Developers With "Cascadia Next"

Back in 2019 Microsoft announced Cascadia Code as an open-source font designed for terminals and code editors. This monospaced font they view is great for developers like those using Visual Studio Code. Over the years Microsoft has further improved upon Cascadia Code with subtle revisions while now they are working to roll-out "Cascadia Next" as their next big step forward.

[26]Microsoft Promotes Azure Linux 3.0 To General Availability

Microsoft is today promoting the v3.0 release of Azure Linux to stable / general availability status for this Linux distribution formerly known as CBL-Mariner.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-WSL2-2024-Features

[2] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Windows-sudo

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-WSL2-Linux-6.6-Kernel

[4] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Linux-More-Inclusive

[5] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Gives-Mono-To-Wine

[6] https://www.phoronix.com/news/WSL-Defaults-DNS-Tunneling

[7] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.9-EFI-Updates

[8] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-Rust-In-Place-Module-Init

[9] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.13-Modules

[10] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-WSL-2.3.11

[11] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Cascadia-Code-2024

[12] https://www.phoronix.com/news/MS-DOS-4.0-Open-Source

[13] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Dropping-WSA

[14] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Azure-Linux

[15] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Azure-Linux-3.0-Pre

[16] https://www.phoronix.com/news/LinkedIn-Switches-Azure-Linux

[17] https://www.phoronix.com/news/DirectX-Adopting-SPIR-V

[18] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Surface-7-X1-Linux-DT

[19] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Linux-2023

[20] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Rust-VFS-Linux-V2-Now-With-EXT2

[21] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Demikernel-2024

[22] https://www.phoronix.com/news/UWP-Mesa-Xbox-Port

[23] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Red-Hat-MS-RHEL-WSL

[24] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Hyperlight-Rust-VMM

[25] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Cascadia-Next

[26] https://www.phoronix.com/news/Microsoft-Azure-Linux-3.0-GA