Microsoft Makes Linux Containers Native On Windows 11 (nerds.xyz)
- Reference: 0185899866
- News link: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/26/09/29/1858218/microsoft-makes-linux-containers-native-on-windows-11
- Source link: https://nerds.xyz/2026/09/microsoft-wsl-containers-linux-windows-11/
> Microsoft has [2]made WSL Containers generally available , giving Windows 11 developers a built-in way to build, run, and deploy Linux containers through Windows Subsystem for Linux. The [3]release includes wslc.exe for managing containers, GPU support, networking improvements, health checks, storage mounts, and integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Intune. Microsoft also claims up to twice the performance when Linux environments access files stored on Windows.
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> Docker Desktop, Podman Desktop, and Rancher Desktop are not going anywhere, but developers who only need basic container functionality now have another option built around WSL. One notable feature is still missing: Compose support. Microsoft says adding it is now a priority.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~BrianFagioli
[2] https://nerds.xyz/2026/09/microsoft-wsl-containers-linux-windows-11/
[3] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/09/29/wsl-containers-now-generally-available/
What's new here? (Score:2)
You could already install docker on WSL and Windows still doesn't have native container support. I'm not sure what the use case for this is.
Re: What's new here? (Score:3)
It's for people who want Microsoft to spy on their Linux
Re: (Score:2)
It's outside my wheelhouse, so there are likely other valid reasons, but it would remove the need for a Docker license.
Halloween Document II (Version 1.4) (Score:2)
Linux OS Competitive Analysis: The Next Java VM?
The Year of the Linux Desktop (Score:2)
The "Year of the Linux Desktop" is finally arriving. Admittedly Linux on the Windows Desktop wasn't quite what we were expecting. :-)
A privacy and performance breakthrough (Score:2)
Now you can run a secure and relatively private operating system inside an intrusive operating system that reports your every keystroke to Big Brother. Not only does this cancel the privacy benefits of the former, it allows the latter an even larger window into your private life than it had before while using more resources and, probably, delivering poorer performance. In other words, it's Microsoft in every possible way.
Re: (Score:2)
absolutely. the worst of both worlds. I was using WSL on a work laptop for a few months, even got as far as having linux apps launched from the start bar. But even then I still kept hitting the UX stupidity of windows and rage-wiped it for CachyOS. My boss is mad I don't get sophos updates any more but I've never been happier.
"Native" is doing a lot of work here. (Score:2)
The containers still run through WSL, but having a built-in way to manage them could be handy. I'd like to see the "up to twice the performance" claim tested against actual bind-mount-heavy development workloads.
No Compose support yet, though? That's the part of "basic container functionality" that turns one container into a useful local stack. Wake me when wslc.exe can run the project's existing setup without a rewrite.
Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen (Score:5, Informative)
It took Microsoft 25 years to go from "[Linux] is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches" to running it natively in Windows.
Re: Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen (Score:5, Interesting)
And it only took Windows 11 to make lots of people not want to do that any more, and only run Windows in a VM... Like any spyware.
Re: (Score:3)
That's what a lot of the linux fanbase seems to think, but if you look at the numbers, Windows 11 has been a success for the company. It reached 1 billion users quicker than Windows 10 did. People hate change, but they do eventually come around. It even dominates among gamers according to the Steam Hardware Survey. Anecdotal evidence of what some guy may have told you when you were talking about linux or what some people in a forum said doesn't translate to real world numbers.
Re: Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen (Score:3)
No one asserted that it didn't still dominate gaming, have fun with your straw man
Re: (Score:2)
But that is mostly caused by NVidia's lackluster (yes, I know they are improving somewhat, but still) driver support in Linux. I have 10 Proxmox nodes deployed. 2 of them use NVidia GPUs. Not even good ones or modern GPUs, but GPUs you would expect the kernel to support for several years already.
The nodes with NVidia GPUs barely manage an uptime of 3 days. The other nodes use either Intel or AMD GPUs. And those run solidly for months. I have spent time migrating Proxmox from v8.x to v9.x as instructed, but
Re: (Score:2)
> But that is mostly caused by NVidia's lackluster (yes, I know they are improving somewhat, but still) driver support in Linux.
I had to dick around with config files again with the recent driver "improvements" to make suspend work (I had to fiddle with persistenced) so yeah, I agree that Nvidia drivers for Linux do suck, but I don't think that's the primary thing keeping Windows going. I would lean on the following two words: Inertia, and Anticompetitive. Write your own story, it's pretty obvious by now.
> Not even good ones or modern GPUs, but GPUs you would expect the kernel to support for several years already.
I don't want to poop on Nouveau, but it's just not useful. It's not their fault, as they are mostly pooped on by Nvidia. IME close
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't want to poop on Nouveau, but it's just not useful. It's not their fault, as they are mostly pooped on by Nvidia. IME closed Nvidia drivers are better than closed AMD drivers, but the open AMD drivers are very good.
If you're talking about Linux, there are no closed AMD drivers. So yeah, the Nvidia drivers are better than something that doesn't exist.
Re: Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen (Score:5, Interesting)
By force mainly. Most average joes have no idea how to stop it from auto updating. I guarantee this is where these numbers are coming from.
Re: (Score:2)
There's also coercion, plenty of software insists you update once an OS goes out of primary support. It's one less OS version they have to support, even if there's no other reasons. That's been a major driver of OS and therefore sometimes hardware updates on both Windows PCs and Macs.
Re: Oh How the Mighty Have Fallen (Score:4, Informative)
You do realize that Microsoft essentially forced people into this? You can't get updates for Windows 10 anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
You can still get updates for Windows 10, via the Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU), till the 12th of October, 2027.
[1]https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/extended-security-updates
Re: (Score:1)
> It took Microsoft 25 years to go from "[Linux] is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches" to running it natively in Windows.
thanks to AI