Windows Subsystem for Linux

2018-10-10
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This is regarding “version one” You probably want Windows Subsystem for Linux 2.

Windows 10 logo Linux logo - 'Tux'

Software >
Windows, Linux >

(on Wikipedia)
https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about [ 1 ]

A way to run Linux commandline software from a specialized console, similar to how a command prompt runs DOS or PowerShell.

It works well, but it’s imperfect.

  • aka wsl

  • Sometimes mis-named Bash on Ubuntu on Windows or Bash on Windows

See also:



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cowsay
cowsay

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Table of Contents [hide]

2021-09-10 – Debian ∞

You might need to do this as Administrator in PowerShell:

(A reboot may be required)

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

To learn what is available:

wsl  --list --online

To install:

wsl --install --distribution Debian

No reboot is required.

2021-02-19 – 2 ∞

Installation ∞

wsl  --set-version Debian 2

But it doesn’t work.

# wsl -l -v
wsl  --list  --verbose
output 
  NAME      STATE           VERSION
* Debian    Stopped         1

Trying

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/wsl/install [ 4 ] [ 5 ]

:: As administrator
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Download and run https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi

In PowerShell:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
wsl --set-default-version 2

~~ TODO

2019-07-19 ∞

[fails] – installation attempt ∞

This is for Windows insiders. Sigh.

I think this is how it’s done, but I don’t know how to test.

Run Powershell as admin.

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
# (You may need to reboot)

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

# Reboot

# Learn what you have installed
wsl --list

# Change to whatever you have installed
wsl --upgrade Debian

Note that Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform might make VirtualBox fail to start, with Call to WHvSetupPartition failed.

2018-10-10 ∞

Installation ∞

0. Preparation

You will be prompted to reboot.

1. Open PowerShell as Administrator

Open cmd as Administrator and type powershell.

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

2. Install Debian

Debian GNU/Linux

When prompted, choose to launch it. This will complete its installation.

Shortcuts ∞

By default, you will have a new “Debian GNU/Linux” in you start menu.

Shortcut to your home directory ∞

If you want to create a shortcut, you can make it with the target:

%windir%\System32\bash.exe ~

Or

%windir%\System32\wsl.exe ~

Shortcut to the current directory ∞

You can also make the target like the above, without the trailing ~, like either of these:

%windir%\System32\bash.exe
%windir%\System32\wsl.exe

And then make Start in

%V

Make blue on black legible ∞

As of 2019-01-07 this is unnecessary.

The easy way:

Win10-16257-Console-Colors.reg 
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console]
"ColorTable00"=dword:000c0c0c
"ColorTable01"=dword:00da3700
"ColorTable02"=dword:000ea113
"ColorTable03"=dword:00dd963a
"ColorTable04"=dword:001f0fc5
"ColorTable05"=dword:00981788
"ColorTable06"=dword:00009cc1
"ColorTable07"=dword:00cccccc
"ColorTable08"=dword:00767676
"ColorTable09"=dword:00ff783b
"ColorTable10"=dword:000cc616
"ColorTable11"=dword:00d6d661
"ColorTable12"=dword:005648e7
"ColorTable13"=dword:009e00b4
"ColorTable14"=dword:00a5f1f9
"ColorTable15"=dword:00f2f2f2

Add context menu ∞

It’s supposed to be there, but isn’t..

–

  • This has been modified to use Zsh as a shell. It’s a bit hackish.

  • Unfortunately, due to the nature of WindowsApps, I cannot provide something that will work unmodified. Change SOMETHING to your appropriate code.

    • I used Process Lasso, then did
      — right-click > Locate > Locate executable on disk …

Note that there is no simple way to expand something like %windir% in a .reg file. The default is a REG-SZ type, but you have to encode it as hex to make it a REG_EXPAND_SZ type.

context.reg 
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

; Get 'TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_SOMETHING' from
; C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Debian]
@="Debian &Shell"
; This will likely be particular to the user.
"Icon"="C:\\Program Files\\WindowsApps\\TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_SOMETHING\\debian.exe"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\Debian\Command]
@="debian.exe run  bash.exe -c zsh"


[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Debian]
@="Debian &Shell"
; This will likely be particular to the user.
"Icon"="C:\\Program Files\\WindowsApps\\TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_SOMETHING\\debian.exe"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\Debian\Command]
@="debian.exe run  bash.exe -c zsh"

Usage and troubleshooting ∞

Locating the files from Windows ∞

For Debian it will be something like:

C:\Users\$USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_$CODE\LocalState\rootfs

Replace $USERNAME and $CODE as appropriate.

Visit C:\Users\$USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\ to figure out your installation code. Why is it done like this? Who knows! Maybe it’s for the same reason Firefox does it: To make it (somehow) difficult for attacks to find that directory.

Using the WSL files from within Windows [DO NOT DO THIS!] ∞

Due to the nature of Microsoft’s fuckery, you can sort of access things, but DO NOT ADD ANYTHING AND DO NOT MAKE CHANGES or you will corrupt the everloving fuck out of your whole thing.

TODO – One possible solution: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/wsl/wsl-file-system-support [ 8 ] [ 9 ]

Running GUI Linux software on Windows Subsystem for Linux ∞

Use XLaunch

Mounting a USB drive ∞

\sudo  \mkdir    /mnt/d
# You may need to try this multiple times.
# Be sure to not be in this directory.
\sudo  \mount  -t drvfs  d:  /mnt/d

Why isn’t this possible by default? Who knows!

Mounting a network drive ∞

If it does not already have a drive letter, but does have a UNC path, you’d do:

\sudo  \mkdir  /mnt/share
\sudo  \mount  -t drvfs  '\\server\share'  /mnt/share

Issues ∞

  • 2020-05-20 — I can’t run a script if it’s already in use.

    • To resolve this, I can do bash scriptname (Bash) even though I normally use Zsh.

  • 2019-02-17 — For some time I haven’t been able to properly run some scripts. They seem to be mangled or chopped up somehow, and the attempt to execute them only sees some of the text in the file.

    • I expect that this is some sort of encoding difference. Maybe it’s line endings, but dos2unix didn’t work. I think perhaps it’s some sort of international character encoding thing, like UTF-8 versus whatever.
    • Everything looks fine with less and Nano. Scripts which I create with Nano work as-expected. Maybe I have to re-create all magically-broken files.

  • While I figured out how to create a shortcut with a hotkey, I cannot open multiple terminal instances with that hotkey.

    • For some time, the development team has been overhauling their terminal, and they are aware of the desire for a tabbed terminal.

  • Permissions are not retained, and chmod is either ignored or has an error.

    • This must be fixed within Windows itself. I set all permissions as inheritable for all objects I’m trying to access (and subdirectories).
  • Doesn’t prompt when you close the terminal.

  • Cannot use a hotkey to paste into a terminal

Footnotes


  1. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about [ ↩ ]
  2. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/wsl/ [ ↩ ]
  3. was blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/ [ ↩ ]
  4. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/wsl/install [ ↩ ]
  5. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/wsl/install-win10 [ ↩ ]
  6. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows/wsl/install [ ↩ ]
  7. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10 [ ↩ ]
  8. was https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/wsl/wsl-file-system-support [ ↩ ]
  9. was logs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system-support/ [ ↩ ]
  10. was https://insider.windows.com/en-us/ [ ↩ ]
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