Microsoft and Canonical bring Bash to Windows

Microsoft and Canonical are making Bash a standard part of Windows 10. The two companies have been working on a Linux subsystem that in turn runs on Windows libraries, the Windows maker announced at the Build developer meeting.

Bash is the shell of virtually all Linux distributions and OS X, where Windows had its own PowerShell. As a result of the move, developers can now also use emacs on Windows 10 to edit their code, or tools such as awk, grep and vi. The partnership with Canonical further allows developers to access multiple Ubuntu binaries on Windows.

Developers can get Bash through Windows Store. It’s part of Windows 10’s Anniversary Update this summer. Tools that enable Bash on Windows have been around for some time, such as win-bash, nt-bash, and Cygwin.