Even Microsoft Acknowledges the Superiority of the Bash Shell Now

As most of you know, I am a strong advocate for using Linux for hacking. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you cannot be a hacker without knowing Linux well. I laid out various reasons for this in my "Why Every Hacker Should Know & Use Linux" article, and I even have a lengthy, continuing series on Linux Basics to help those new to Linux master it.

There are many, many reasons to prefer Linux as an operating system, and Microsoft seems to be agreeing with me now.

Microsoft is now implicitly acknowledging the superiority of Linux, or at least, the command-line Bash shell. Microsoft announced recently that they will be adding an Ubuntu Bash shell to the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. This will not be an emulator or VM, but a true, native Bash shell. This is a nod by Microsoft to the superiority of the Linux Bash shell and power of open-source software development.

Microsoft

Microsoft previously took a small step toward acknowledging the superiority of the Linux command line when they offered Linux commands in the PowerShell. There, they simply offered symbolic links from Linux commands to Windows commands, such as ls to dir. This time is different.

With this new Bash-on-Ubuntu shell, Microsoft has developed some Windows kernel components that support Linux kernel APIs. These new components developed by Microsoft are NOT offered with the standard open-source licensing such as GPL, and presumably, do not contain any Linux code. In essence, it appears that Microsoft has developed a proprietary Bash shell that looks and acts like an Ubuntu Bash shell. Microsoft has apparently implemented the Linux kernel API using the native Windows NT API. For now, Microsoft is calling this WSL, or the "Windows Subsystem for Linux."

TechCrunch

I don't think this changes my recommendation that you must know Linux to hack, but it may make the Microsoft platform slightly more amenable as a hacking platform. Remember, one of the key differences between Linux and Microsoft is that Linux is totally open and Windows is totally closed. Trying to get a closed-source platform to do something that we want and Microsoft doesn't will be challenging, to say the least.

If anything, this adoption of the Linux Bash shell by Microsoft should reinforce the importance of learning to use the command-line approach to computing, scripting, and hacking.