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What is WSL?

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is an environment in Windows 10 for running unmodified Linux binaries in a way similar to LinuxContainers.

What is WSL 2?

WSL(1) runs Linux binaries by implementing a Linux API compatibility layer partly in the Windows kernel while WSL 2 uses the Linux kernel itself in a lightweight VM to provide better compatibility with native Linux installations.

Enabling WSL in Windows 10

Before installing the Ubuntu apps WSL has to be enabled in one of the following ways.

Using PowerShell

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

      1  Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
   

2. Restart your computer when prompted.

Using the GUI for enabling Windows features

1. Open the Control Panel

2. Visit Programs and Features ' submenu Turn Windows features on or off

3. Select Windows Subsystem for Linux

4. Click OK

5. Reboot

Ubuntu on WSL

Installing Ubuntu

Ubuntu can be installed on WSL from the Microsoft Store or using the offline installers. Supported Ubuntu releases are available as separate apps:

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial) is the first release available for WSL. It supports the x64 architecture only. (offline installer: x64)

• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Bionic) is the current LTS release and the first one supporting ARM64 systems, too. (offline installers: x64, ARM64)

• Ubuntu (without the release version) always follows the recommended release, switching over to the next one when it gets the first point release. Right now it installs Ubuntu 18.04.

The apps are like installation kits. Each app creates a separate root file system in which Ubuntu shells are opened but app updates don’t change the root file system afterwards. Installing a different app in parallel creates a different root file system allowing you to have both Ubuntu LTS releases installed and running in case you need it for keeping compatibility with other external systems. You can also upgrade your Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04 by running ‘do-release-upgrade’ and have three different systems running in parallel, separating production and sandboxes for experiments.

Running Ubuntu

The Ubuntu Terminal can be started via the app tiles in the Start menu, from the Windows command line using the wsl command, or by simply running "ubuntu", "ubuntu1804", etc. from the command line.

Keeping Ubuntu up-to-date in WSL

WSL runs its specialized init system instead of SystemD and does not run standard Ubuntu services and software updates are not applied automatically. Please keep your WSL installation using APT maintenance commands regularly.

Third-party tools

Enthusiasm among the power-user community has led to the development of many useful enhancements to the base WSL feature set. Listed below are links to some of them.

WSL Manager GUIs

• WSL Hub Offers a graphical interface for installing and managing Linux distributions on Windows 10 & Server 2016, from release 19H1 onwards. Allows users to install Linux distros with or without using the Microsoft Store, or even their own custom tarballs and view the status of them at a glance. Other features include: creating backups and snapshots of installed WSL distros, monitor disk space used, retrieve registry keys associated with them, create custom shortcuts that launch a desired distro with extra invocation flags, and mounting of their Linux filesystems without running them.

Command line tools

• WSLInstall Install any GNU/Linux distribution userspace in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with compressed RootFS tarballs, Docker containers or ISO files.

Reporting Issues

Due to the differences in running Ubuntu on real hardware and on WSL instead of using standard Ubuntu channels please report issues at http://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/ where the issues can't be reproduced outside of WSL environments.