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.
We can see from the more detailed Codeberg readme and repository that there are three main components to WSL9x. These are a patched Linux kernel, a VxD driver, and wsl.com. The tinkerer and coder explained that “wsl.com is just a client program, it exists to hold a DOS window open for the console driver in the kernel to push chars into. + It also handles shuttling keystrokes from DOS to the console driver on IRQ.”
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With the tool built and run, following the guide at Codeberg, users will be able to run “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,” writes Hailey. No reboots are required to fire this up and get your favorite Windows 9X and Linux apps running side-by-side, highlights the developer.
In an age of AI and vibe coding, readers may also be refreshed to hear that WSL9x was “proudly written without AI.” Hailey also reveals that WSL9x has been brewing for six years, ever since she finished her doslinux project.
Meanwhile, Linux is saying goodbye to the 486
Earlier this month, we reported on Linux kernel devs starting to remove support for the 37-year-old Intel 486 CPU. Linus Torvalds had previously telegraphed that there was 'zero real reason' to continue support for this ancient processor.
Developer Ingo Molnar will probably go down in history as the 486 on Linux gallowsman, though. Molnar authored a patch “that initially gets rid of the CONFIG_M486SX, CONFIG_M486, and CONFIG_MELAN Kconfig build option.” This patch is expected to be merged into Linux 7.1, so from that time, users won’t be able to build an i486 kernel image. Time to upgrade to a Pentium, perhaps.
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