Microsft build 2019: My Tiny Little Summary

---
date: May 10, 2019
tags:
- C#
- WSL
- WSL2
- Microsoft Build
language: English
---
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TL; DR

This is a summary for some of the topics that I am interested in Build 2019. Build 2019 is a fun experience for me, where I met different people, speak here, and most importantly, learn new ideas and new changes in the Windows ecosystem.

And here is a photograph of me with Scott Hanselman ;)

A photograph of me with Scott Hanselman
A photograph of me with Scott Hanselman

WSL 2

WSL 2 is one of the most import parts of Build 2019 for me. I got some teases of WSL 2 before Build 2019 and already really got excited about it, and Hayden and I got an early demo at the booth too, which literally blew my mind. So, in the following part, I will just throw facts from the build from the sessions and the question asked:

Highlights:

  1. WSL 2 is fast. Really fast.
  2. Nearly all system call is working, which means:
    1. systemd/FUSE/Docker now works properly.
    2. Sound support is not on the schedule.
    3. x32 support.
    4. mount command works too, which means you can mount Linux partition in this method.
  3. Uses a modified version of Linux Kernel 2.19 and changes to WSL will also available upstream.
  4. You can switch between WSL 1 and WSL 2 using wsl --set-version <distro> <wsl version>.
  5. WSL 2 uses 9P protocol to access Windows file in WSL and access WSL file in Windows.
  6. the filesystem for each distro will be ext4 instead of WslFS.
  7. Yes, it’s using hypervisor; but no, it’s not Hyper-V. it’s a lightweight virtual machine using Windows Virtual Machine Platform that can be run along with Hyper-V, its boot time will be around 1-2 seconds.

Drawbacks:

  1. Currently WSL 2 will have a different IP address currently; the fix is still on the way.
  2. The final WSL 2 might not ship in the release; even it is shipped, WSL 1 will remain as default and requires people to switch to WSL 2 manually.

Schedules:

  1. GPU support is in working(High priority).
  2. GUI support is in working(High priority).
  3. Startup Support is in medium priority, not in working.
  4. Sound support is not on schedule (for now).

Windows Terminal

Another exciting thing on Build this year is Windows Terminal. they even made a video for it! (Also our product Pengwin also made a cameo)

Highlights:

  1. It is already open sourced. The decision to open source only made several days ago, and it is being pushed during the Build 2019.
  2. Tab support!
  3. Full Unicode support! (CJK, Emoji, Powerline, Nerd)
  4. Ligature Support!
  5. A new font for Windows Terminal!
  6. Fluent background!
  7. The scrollbar can now be hidden!
  8. Ctrl + Scroll to change the font size.
  9. Ctrl + Shift + Scroll to change transparency.
  10. The new rendering engine is using DirectX/GPU powered.
  11. Each WSL distribution will have its own theme in the future.
  12. In the future, there will be extension support using wt;
  13. Some changes in Windows Terminal will come to conhost.exe too.
  14. Deliver via store; first version in the summer 2019 and first release in the winter 2019.

WinUI

Highlight:

Suggestions:

Progress Web App

It seems that PWA is a new trend in building apps, so I watched the session live as I am attending ML.NET Session. Here are some highlights:

C# 8.0

As a C# Developer, although I am not really active right now, I am still interested in what’s new in C#.

Other Notes

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