Using the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Whilst I have Linux machines available to me, they’re not always powered up or the remoting

See Windows Subsystem for Linux Installation Guide for Windows 10 for details on installing the WSL.

For completeness here’s the steps I took.

  • Run PowerShell as Admin and then execute the following

    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  • Go to the Microsoft Store and type Run Linux on Windows into the search text box. In the store currently, there’s the options of Ubuntu, openSUSE Leap 42, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, Debian and Kali Linux.

    Install your preferred distro – I went for Ubuntu simply because that’s what I have on most of my Linux boxes.

  • Once installed you’ll need to go to the command prompt | Properties and select the Options tab. From here ensure that Use legacy console (requires relaunch) is unchecked.

Once everything is initialized you’ll be in the user’s (whatever user name you created) home folder – on Windows this folder is stored in C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc\LocalState\rootfs\home

We can access the C drive using

cd /mnt/c

Running the Linux from Windows

When you want to run the Windows Subsystem for Linux going forward, simply execute

wsl