The
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) runs
a GNU/Linux Environment which includes most of the command-line utilities and applications on top of Windows OS. Traditionally
there are many ways we can set up Linux OS to work with. Either it can be a dual boot, running through VMWare or VirtualBox,
or installing it as our main OS.
Now with
Windows Subsystem for Linux, adds a new capability eliminating the overhead of setting up the OS from scratch. It is easy to
set up with WSL and Install Linux and get going. To know more about the architecture of WSL refer to Microsoft
Build 2019 BRK3068.
Here we
will be setting up WSL 2 which is the
latest release. WSL 2 is part of
Windows 10, version 2004 released in May 2020. WSL
1 used a translation or compatibility layer between Linux and Windows while WSL
2 uses virtual machine technology to allow you to run a real Linux kernel directly on Windows 10.
Comparisons Between WSL 1 and WSL 2
Comparisons
Between WSL1 and WSL2
Before Installing WSL 2 you need
Windows 10, Version 1903, Build 18362, or higher.
Enable the Windows Subsystem and Virtual Machine for Linux
You must
first enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux
and Virtual Machine Platform optional
features before installing any Linux distributions
on the Windows system. The WSL
2 uses Virtual Machine technology
instead of a translation layer to communicate between Windows and Linux.
Open PowerShell as
Administrator and run the following commands to turn on WSL and VM feature
and reboot the system once.
Install Your Linux Distribution of Choice on Windows
Open
the Microsoft
Store and select your favorite Linux distribution.
Run
Linux on Windows
For demonstration purposes, we will install Ubuntu,
go to Microsoft store, and in the search bar type Ubuntu.
Install
Ubuntu on Windows
Open Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and click
Install.
Install
Ubuntu 20.04 in Windows
Launching Ubuntu is pretty easy in Windows.
Just go to search and type Ubuntu,
it will show all the installed versions of Ubuntu.
You can
also pin that in the Windows Taskbar or if you are using a new Windows
Terminal you can configure in it. Now we will launch Ubuntu
20.04. If you are launching it for the first time it will take some time to set up a few things at the backend then
it will prompt us to set username and password.
Running
Ubuntu in Windows
At this stage, you may receive an error to install the kernel component. To fix this error you have to manually download and
install WSL2 Linux Kernel.
0x1bc WSL 2 requires an update to its kernel component.
Now I
have configured both 18.04 and 20.04 in
the same way as shown in the previous section. Open the shell and type the following command to check the Distribution and
Release of your Ubuntu.
lsb_release -a
Check
Ubuntu Release Version
Now we are done with installing Ubuntu on
Windows. Within less time we can have a functional distro where we can start installing tools and packages like docker,
ansible, git, python, etc. as per our requirement.
Learn Windows Subsystem Commands for Linux Distro
There
are few options we can use to launch our Linux Distribution directly from PowerShell or CMD prompt.
1. Type the following command, which
will show the list of options we can use along with wsl.
wsl -help
2. Check the installed version of
distribution by running the command the following command.
wsl -l
Check
Ubuntu Distribution Version
From the output of this command, you can see two versions of Ubuntu is
installed and Ubuntu 20.04 is set to be
launched as default.
3. Default Distribution (Ubuntu
20.04) can be launched by simply typing.
wsl
Launch
Default Linux Distro
4. Change the default Linux
distribution by running the command.
wsl -s Ubuntu-18.04
Change
Default Linux Distribution
5. Connect to specific distribution
with a specific user by running the command.
wsl -d Ubuntu-18.04 -u tecmint
Connect
to Linux Distor with User
6. We can pass a few flags along with
the "wsl
-l" command to check the status of the distribution.
wsl -l --all List all distributions.
wsl -l --running List only distributions that are currently running.
wsl -l --quiet Only show distribution names.
wsl -l --verbose show detailed information about all distributions.
Check
Distribution State
7. By running the following command, we
can check what WSL version my Linux Distribution is running with.
wsl -l -v
Check
WSL Version
My Ubuntu 20.04 is running with
version WSL 1 since it is configured
long back. I can convert that to WSL 2 by
running the command.
wsl --set-version Ubuntu-20.04 2
This
will take some time to complete and you can see Conversion
Complete when WSL 1 is
converted to WSL 2.
Convert
WSL 1 to WSL 2
When running the --set-version command,
open another PowerShell window and run wsl
-l -v to check the current state. It will show as Converting.
wsl -l -v
Check
Converting State
You can run the following command again to check the current WSL version. Both my Distribution will now be running with WSL2.
wsl -l -v
List
WSL Version
We can also set WSL2 as the default
version so when we install new distribution it will run with WSL2.
You can set the default version by running.
wsl --set-default-version 2
Set
Default WSL Version
In this article, we have seen how to configure WSL
2 to install Ubuntu Linux on Windows and learned a few command-line options that we can use from PowerShell or
cmd prompt.
During Installation, you may encounter different errors which I have
not encountered, in that case, the official troubleshooting
document will be a good place to start. Also, take a look at the official FAQ
section from Microsoft documentation to get more insight about WSL.
If you liked this article, then do subscribe
to email alerts for Linux tutorials. If you have any questions or doubts? do ask
for help in the comments section.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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