WSL, Hyper-V and Docker after a few days of use

With a new contract I had a chance to set up a complete Windows environment for Scala development. This post lists the pros and cons - no final verdict yet.

Why Microsoft’s OS?

• Microsoft has changed a lot since it realized it has new, strong competition.
• Docker is very well integrated - local ports and disk space.
• Hyper-V comes free with Windows 10 Pro. It’s a type 1 hypervisor with lower CPU overhead than VirtualBox and VMware Workstation (type 2), and a VMware licence costs more than Windows 10 Pro.
• Drivers work. On Ubuntu the TrackPoint sucks (ThinkPad W540) and the fingerprint reader breaks regularly.
• A clipboard manager and a sandbox are coming to Windows 10 soon.
• Across Center, Logitech Flow, Cortana, DirectX etc. aren’t available on Ubuntu.

Windows is made for a good UI, GNU/Linux for servers, and each sucks at the other’s job. Why not combine the best of both worlds?

Needs

• Git management
• An IDE like IntelliJ IDEA
• sbt and other build tools
• Running services locally
• Testing locally

Options

VM on Hyper-V

Why not keep everything in a VM?

Pros:

• The hardware is handled by Windows drivers and software.
• Windows battery management is used.
• Mouse movement is smooth - Microsoft implemented RDP for Linux guests!
• From my observation, the CPU overhead is below 2%.
• Drive passthrough works! NTFS won’t slow you down (at the cost of VM checkpoints).

Cons:

• High memory consumption, 32 GB is nice to have.
• No good GPU acceleration for 2D. Linux is a first-class citizen on Windows now, yet RemoteFX still isn’t implemented for Linux guests, and GPU passthrough works only on Windows Server.

Microsoft, please allow GPU passthrough!

WSL + Docker

Windows Subsystem for Linux - a Linux user space running directly on the Windows kernel, without a VM.

Pros:

• Very low memory footprint.
• A normal bash (with Unix ssh!) that can be the IDE’s main terminal.
• Shares ports and disk space with the host (more or less). Great interoperability between Windows and GNU tools.
• So much just works!
• With a few aliases you can use Docker for Windows like a normal Docker client on Ubuntu. Every Windows command is available by adding .exe.

Cons:

• High execution overhead - around 20% slower than raw Ubuntu (measured by compiling the Akka repository), probably because of IO performance.
• Ivy artefacts and RSA keys exist separately on the Windows and Linux sides, so you need to sync them or reconfigure where they are stored. By default, everything Linux-related lives in a protected zone that Windows tools must not touch.
• The IDE still builds separately with Windows tools, so you need to plan how to share build output and resources.
• Docker sometimes needs a restart…
• Not everything works. Adding a GPG key for a repository needed a workaround…

Raw Windows?

Cons:

• PowerShell can’t pass arguments to sbt properly… (link)
• A poor built-in package manager.
• More in my post There is no ideal OS for a programmer.

Mix?

Material for a future post: a Linux VM used only as a server, accessed through a text terminal.

• Best performance
• Pure GNU/Linux
• All UIs from Windows (better tested!)
• Needs far more configuration: the VM, network, drive sharing, synchronization and exposing ports for testing from the host…

An unfinished experiment

After two days I’m pleased with the results, but I’ll still stick to raw Ubuntu on a separate drive ;).

Want to know more about this topic? Ask in the comments. Suggestions are welcome.

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