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| Microsoft offers Linux GUI apps in Windows 10 |
Microsoft has started letting Windows 10 testers use Linux GUI to access Linux applications.
Windows Insiders can use the first preview that the GUI supports today.
This allows developers to run GUI editing tools and applications to create and test Linux applications.
After Microsoft added a full Linux kernel to Windows 10 last year, it was a major extension of Microsoft's Windows subsystem for Linux WSL.
WSL is a compatibility layer used to run Linux executable binaries on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019.
And in May 2019, WSL 2 was announced, which introduced major changes across a subset of Hyper-V features like the true Linux kernel.
Previously, it was possible to use a third-party X server to run Linux applications from the Windows GUI.
Thanks to official Microsoft support, GPU and GPU hardware acceleration can also keep apps and tools running smoothly.
Audio and microphone support is also included so Linux developers can easily test or run video players and communication applications.
All of this can be enabled and Windows users do not need to use X11 redirection or start X server manually.
When you try to run the Linux GUI application, Microsoft will automatically start the Linux distribution that came with the system, which includes Wayland, X Server, PulseAudio Server and any other functions required to do this task on Windows.
Once the app and WSL are ready, this special edition will expire as well. All these components combined make it easy to run Linux GUI applications with regular Windows applications.
Microsoft is also testing a new business model for Windows Task Manager in its latest beta. This is an experimental feature that allows you to control processing resources in Task Manager.
This mode aims to reduce the consumption of system resources by the application. This mode can come in handy when you want to restrict the app temporarily.
If you want to test Linux GUI applications through Windows 10 or this new Task Manager feature, you will need to install the latest version of Windows 10 for Windows Insider Testers with build number 21364. Note that this version is intended for developers and designed by developer. Not suitable for the devices you depend on every day.