WSL9x runs a modern Linux kernel (6.19 at time of writing) cooperatively inside the Windows 9x kernel, enabling users to take advantage of the full suite of capabilities of both operating systems at the same time, including paging, memory protection, and pre-emptive scheduling. Run all your favourite applications side by side – no rebooting required!
…
Well this blew my mind.
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is one of the single best things Microsoft have added to Windows in the last decade1. But, of course, it’s for Windows 10 and 11 only. I would never have conceived that somebody could make the same trick work for, like, Windows 95!
But Hails has done so. And no, this isn’t some kind of emulation; it’s proper cooperative multitasking between the two kernels, just like regular WSL does. Somehow, in a version that came out nine years before Windows even supported the NX bit. Mindboggling.
Footnotes
1 This ought to be a little embarrassing for them: I mean – if the most-valuable improvement you make to your operating system is to make it… more like a different operating system… – that’s not a great sign, is it?
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