A computer tinkerer and hacker has posted a tool called WSL9x on Codeberg and taken to social media to boast that it might be “one of my greatest hacks of all time.” Hailey shared a summary of WSL9x on Mastodon, referring to it by its longer and more meaningful name, the Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux. Oftentimes, folks like to run old OSes inside their modern ones, but WSL9x turns that on its head, as it can run the most modern Linux kernels within some of the earliest versions of Windows. It works on systems sporting Windows 95 or newer, and even machines with 486 CPUs.
In her brief summary of WSL9x, Hailey highlights that the tool can “can run all your favorite Windows and Linux apps side-by-side with a modern Linux kernel running cooperatively with the Windows kernel in ring 0.” Moreover, it is even compatible with processors as far back as the 486, because no hardware virtualization is used. That contrasts with modern WSL in Microsoft's latest versions of Windows.
