Windows 10 Users With Windows Subsystem For Linux Can Now Use GUI Apps

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for running GNU/Linux environments on Windows 10 and Windows 11 has reached version 1.0.0 and is now generally available. Microsoft has been building WSL, including its own custom Linux kernel, for several years now. At first, WSL and WSL2 were an optional component within Windows, but last October Microsoft made the preview WSL available in the Microsoft Store as a separate app. The Store version could deliver users -- mostly developers and IT pros -- faster updates and features independently of updates to Windows.

As well as WSL shedding the "preview" label, Microsoft is making the WSL app from the Store the default for new users. As Microsoft noted last October at the release of Windows 11, the long term plan was to move WSL users to the Store version. However, Windows 11 still supported the "inbox version" of WSL while it continued developing the Store version. With this release, Microsoft is backporting WSL functionality to Windows 10 and 11 to make the Store version of WSL the default experience. The latest backport is available to "seekers" who click "Check for Updates" in Windows Settings, but in mid-December it will be pushed automatically to devices. The updates are available for Windows 10 version 21H1, 21H2, or 22H2, or on Windows 11 21H2 with all of the November updates applied.

Microsoft detailed a number of changes to commands now that the Store version of WSL is the default version, noting "wsl.exe --install will now automatically install the Store version of WSL, and will no longer enable the "Windows Subsystem for Linux" optional component, or install the WSL kernel or WSLg MSI packages as they are no longer needed." The virtual machine platform optional component will still be enabled, and by default Ubuntu will still be installed. One of the main new additions to WSL 1.0 is that users can opt in to support for systemd, the at-one-point maligned Linux system and service manager, which runs by default in several Linux distros, including Ubuntu and Debian. Also, Windows 10 users can use Linux GUI apps, a capability that was previously exclusive to Windows 11 users.

Can it co-exist with VirtualBox yet?

[cebu2018]

I've always wanted to try out WSL but I have to run a fair bit of my workload in VirtualBox, and last time I tested it, VirtualBox still didn't play well with Hyper-V being enabled (a pre-requisite for WSL). It had reached the point of "VM's can run", but they could only get the "turtle performance mode" (signified by the green turtle on the VM's interface bar) because Hyper-V prevents VBox direct access to VT-x/AMD-v. Has anyone had a more recent/more positive experience with running VirtualBox VMs and W

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

You can run old-WSL (it doesn't need a VM), but its performance is pretty rough in certain areas (particularly file I/O), and of course Microsoft isn't updating their syscall translation layer anymore.
That being said, I keep a WSL1 and a WSL2 Ubuntu around just for shits and giggles.

Re: Can it co-exist with VirtualBox yet?

[simlox]

Or VmWare. Was a problem for me in my former job where we used VmWare, and when tried WSL2 I could no longer perform my job in VmWare before a reinstall. Kind of stopped further experiments with WSL2, which otherwise would have been a better solution than VmWare.

Re:

[raynet]

WSL also prevented running Android Emulator on Ryzen. Not sure if that issue is fixed by now.

Re: Can it co-exist with VirtualBox yet?

[Billly Gates]

Google bcdedit vbox and hyper-V? Also bcdedit and friendly name description? Basically you need to copy your UEFI boot entry and give it a name and a startup argument to not run the hypervisor similar to Grub?

At startup you will be granted a menu to choose. Android studio also now supports AMDs hypervisor as well as a Microsoft now and is no longer tied to just Intels HamX

Re:

[cebu2018]

Decided to do a little benchmarking and the results were interesting. Test system is a Lenovo Legion 7i laptop with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, 32GB RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, running Windows 11. The test VM (under Virtualbox 7.0.2) is an Xubuntu 22.04.1 system with 2 processors assigned, 4GB of RAM, and running the VMSVGA graphics controller with 3D acceleration enabled. I tested with Hyper-V disabled (which allows AMD-V), then again with it enabled (didn't go so far as to install WSL). VM was

Re: Can it co-exist with VirtualBox yet?

[Billly Gates]

That's hyper-v not wsl2. People confuse them as wsl only offers a container and subset of the full hypervisor set. Hyper-v encapsulates and swallows the host as a VM itself. Wsl 2 doesn't go that far. Hyper-v on Windows client not server, purposely limits GPU access so Microsoft can upsell Windows Server.

Re: Can it co-exist with VirtualBox yet?

[Billly Gates]

Yes.

Google bcdedit box and hyper-V and follow Scott Haslemens website that is the first hit? He works at Microsoft. You need to use bcdedit to copy your boot entry and assign it a no hypervisor argument.

Then Google bcdedit description friendly name to rename your current entry to something like Virtualization Enabled and you can name the copy Windows 11 pro or virtualbox. It's a hassle but necessary

Re:

[cebu2018]

Thanks Billly Gates, found it - here's the link for anyone who'd like to give it a try:

https://www.hanselman.com/blog... [hanselman.com]

Now you can do "ls -al" in windows

[siewsk]

Now you can do "ls -al" in windows

Re:

[gardyloo]

MobaXTerm, baby.

Re:Now you can do "ls -al" in windows

[fluffernutter]

And grep/sed/awk. Maybe powershell can do those things now but batch scripting was horrible compared to bash. Still powershell seems horribly ugly.

Re:Now you can do "ls -al" in windows

[zoloto]

powershell scripting is overly verbose. in PS you can do "cat (Get-PSReadLineOption).HistorySavePath" whereas linux it's just "history". This is one of DOZENS of ridiculously long commands that should, by default, have a more succinct alias to it. Sure you can create your own aliases but you shouldn't have to manage a dotfile config you pull from github or something.

Re:

[conorjh]

Im convinced Powershell was written by a sociopath who hated their fellow man

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

You could do all that with MingW and Cygwin. WSL is more for times when you need an actual Linux system so you can set up the stack of tools needed to build/run certain software.

Neat

[DrXym]

I use WSL all the time at work where we have a mixed environment but development is mostly in Linux. I've used WSLg on Windows 11 and it's pretty cool, working almost seamlessly. It's great that it works on Windows 10 too since I've had to use MobaXTerm until now. MobaXTerm is pretty decent but it's not without issues.

nope

[guygo]

I am on Win10 22H2 and I tried to install WSL V1 from the MS Store. I wound up getting "Windows version 10.0.19045.2251 does not support the packaged version of Windows Subsystem for Linux." installer error in a CMD window. I am wondering just how "general" is the "generally available"?

Re:

[guygo]

Actually - CMD window error not withstanding - it installed WSL V1. somebody goofed...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

You can just install it from the Microsoft Store. One click, along with whatever version of Linux you prefer.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Microsoft announced in a blog post that the store version now installs WSL2 with GUI support. It was only this week.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: nope

[Billly Gates]

You need to install optional updates aka preview. Then the store will offer you the full thing in addition to Windows 10 22h2 not 22h1. The article was not clear about this as last months regular update does not have this ...yet .

Also if you want to bypass the store you need to install the virtual platform feature to enable the wsl 2 bit. If you installed your distro already you will then need to convert it to wsl2 via the command line with the wsl /?.

SystemD and Unix sockets have been around for awhile now

Re:

[buanzo]

Same here. I run 19044, but store packaged does not work. Probably a bug. See: https://github.com/MicrosoftDo... [github.com]

Re:

[guygo]

After running the installer, i checked the version of the installed WSL and it was V1, so it worked (I guess) but just erroneously threw the error (prolly on old criteria). Anyway, glad to know I am not the only one. bash away!

Re:

[mcswell]

I point this out above, but I'll repeat: you need KB5020030.

Re: nope

[tatroc]

I had the same error there is windows update prerequisite. If you look under the GitHub for wsl there is mention of it

Re:

[quarrel]

Manually check for updates in Windows Update.

There was a KB released on Nov 14 that is needed for the WLS update referenced in OP.

Re:

[mcswell]

I can't find now where I saw it, but you need a newer update to Windows 10, KB5020030, in order to run WSL *V2*. This Windows update is currently marked as optional, so you have to manually request it in Windows Settings | Updates. Once you have that, you should be able to install v2 (you probably don't want v1). However, I haven't succeeded in getting it to do GUIs, so I've gone back to using VcXrv for X-Windows stuff.

Re:

[guygo]

Thx!

Unclean

[rtkluttz]

Using windows to run linux in a sandbox instead of linux to run windows in a sandbox is the equivalent of building a hospital operating room in the middle of a landfill.

Re:Unclean

[fahrbot-bot]

Using windows to run linux in a sandbox instead of linux to run windows in a sandbox is the equivalent of building a hospital operating room in the middle of a landfill.

More objectively, I would offer that as it's easier to move a virtualized Windows install than a bare-metal Windows install to a different machine, while being even easier to move/reinstall Linux (in either case), running Windows as a VM on Linux would seem the better choice than the other way around. Though I can see the appeal of have a Linux subsystem on Windows for some tings, like scripting.

Host-only Windows license

[tepples]

One difference is that the OEM copy of Windows that comes with a pre-built PC is licensed to run as a host, not as a guest.

Re:

[DeathToBill]

The big use case for this is developers who like to work on Linux but who game with their kids in the evenings. Dual boot is a faff and too many games still don't run well on Linux (though Lutris and Proton are making heavy inroads here I'm pleased to say).

I'm one of the oddballs who things GNOME is the right desktop environment. When I can replace the Windows shell with GNOME running on WSL, I'll probably jump ship to Windows just so the few things I use that still run better on Windows do their thing.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

One of the major use cases for WSL is developing Linux code in Visual Studio. You can do it on Linux with VS Code, but for some stuff the full fat Visual Studio is unrivalled. The most common example is Microsoft Azure cloud Linux hosts.

Another reason to use WSL is you get Windows' hardware support. Linux still has issues with unsupported or poorly supported hardware. It's particularly bad with laptops.

Re:

[Spugglefink]

I can see the point. I just now heard about WSL. I've been running Linux for almost everything since 2001, but I started using Windows again when I got some mission-critical hardware that wasn't Linux friendly. After being a Linux audio developer for quite some time, I moved audio production to fricking Windows, because of the hardware issue.

More recently, I started producing 4k videos. One video took 28 hours to produce, and I decided to throw money at that problem. Perhaps I threw too much money at the pr

Re:

[Spugglefink]

Interesting. I guess I'll go start messing with it.

Yeah, that didn't last long. Immediate error. Highlight error message. Paste.

Paste.

Paste!

Paste!!! Paste!!! PASTE!!!!

Oh. That's right. Windows doesn't highlight paste. Will that even work inside Linux apps? Plus I am one of the six people left on Earth who still runs KDE, and there is no Kubuntu.

Humbug! Humbug I say! Experiment aborted.

Re: Unclean

[Billly Gates]

Speaking of modern computers have you Googled AMDs 7950x and 7900 CPUs? You can get 12 - 16 core 32 thread monsters for $3500! It's 2022 virtualize what you need and use the cores for the OS of your choice.

Your encodings could be finished in 2 to , 3 minutes easily on a 7950x beast! Hyper-v is available on Windows 11 pro which can run wsl 2 and real full operating systems. VMware workstation while not cheap is there and gnome boxes qemu on Linux can run Windows but probably not audio workflows well.

Wsl is a

Re:

[gweihir]

Yep. But now that it has systemd, that operating room is looking pretty suspect as well.

Re:

[johnnys]

Please mod parent up. That's the best analogy for this situation I've ever read!

Re:

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

I'd not create a landfill inside the operating room either. I prefer to skip the whole landfill hassle and run Linux apps where they are meant to and let Windows to those who handle garbage for a living.

Re:

[thegarbz]

No, it's the equivalent of understanding the primary purpose and the secondary purpose, and ignoring some pointless bullshit culture war that does nothing but make things inefficient.

If I need to run 1 Linux program and 100 Windows programs and choose to run Linux with Windows in a sandbox then I hope someone would shoot me to put my senile self out of my misery.

Re:

[conorjh]

Using windows to run linux in a sandbox instead of linux to run windows in a sandbox is the equivalent of building a hospital operating room from the 60s in the middle of a landfill.

my edit

Re: Unclean

[simlox]

But easier for IT... and admit it: you have to use MS tools at work :-( WSL + docker seems like a hit, where colleagues of mine can stay in Windows, while build and testing Docker containers in WSL seamlessly.

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

The Microsoft fanbois (and paid 'influencers', I'm sure) crap all over me when I berate Windows, but you seem to get it: Microsofts employees have spent a lot of time infiltrating the Linux community, and now they're co-opting Linux, making it run under Windows. At some point I'm sure their 'influencers' will start trying to move people away from bootable Linux installations with the argument that 'you can run everything under Windows, why do you need free-standing Linux anymore'.
Seriously I get scoffed at

Re:

[exomondo]

Seriously I get scoffed at when I put this idea forward but Microsofts' record of being evil certainly makes this more than a little plausible.

Makes what more plausible? You haven't suggested what you think is going on. Hundreds of Linux distributions have been able to be run in VMs atop Windows, booted alongside Windows and even run as a Live distribution yet you suggest though that this WSL is so incredibly good that it is going to make all the users and distro maintainers suddenly switch to Windows?

The reason you get "scoffed" at is because what you're saying is nonsense, a cabal of powerful (yet somehow nameless) shadowy "influencers" infiltra

Re:

[Rick Schumann]

Oh for fucks' sake.. can't anyone understand what people write anymore?
No one is being 'shadowy'. Microsoft has more and more of it's own employees involved in the Linux community, and they're systematically making bootable Linux distros irrelevant (or trying to, anyway) by making it possible to do all Linux-related things without having to exit Windows at all.
Meanwhile who is it that holds the keys to 'secure boot'? For the moment motherboard/BIOS manufacturers allow you to disable Secure Boot so you can

Re: Unclean

[Billly Gates]

My name was created being an a MS hater troll being juvenile in 1999. A typical Unix fanboy who liked FreeBSD/OpenBSD and Linux second who threw hot grits down your pants back then for anyone who disagreed (only old timers would understand that reference)

There are no MS Fanboys. Most of us grew up and enjoy computers but hang out at layer 7 the app layer of the OSI model and stopped autistically obsessing on operating systems. Call us broken Stokeholm syndrome who just numbed out to get work done?

I gave up

Re:

[exomondo]

No one is being 'shadowy'. Microsoft has more and more of it's own employees involved in the Linux community, and they're systematically making bootable Linux distros irrelevant (or trying to, anyway) by making it possible to do all Linux-related things without having to exit Windows at all.

Who are these people you're talking about? You said they aren't being shadowy so who are they?

For the moment motherboard/BIOS manufacturers allow you to disable Secure Boot so you can boot Linux, but what if the ability to disable that goes away, and they who hold the reins of Secure Boot decide to not 'authorize' Linux distros anymore?

Change the record, you conspiracy nutbags have been banging on about this for the last decade, back in 2012 you were saying the same thing. I've had a handful of non-Mac computers in that time and every single one of them either dual-boots Linux or runs Linux exclusively with no problems.

Or are you a Microsoft employee, tasked with being an 'influencer' for them on the Internet? Or perhaps one of the Microsoft fanbois I spoke of, who suck Microsofts' dick constantly?

Whoa somebody got triggered! LOL. You're obviously not the least bit involved in the Linux community if you think it has been "in

Re:

[rtkluttz]

What is inside has to come out eventually. Open that airtight seal and walk into a face full of gonorrhea. Even then if your airtight operating room is dependent on resources from the landfill, when that landfill gets nuked so does your operating room.

Year of Linux on the Windows Desktop...

[codemachine]

Linux is getting to desktops in an unconventional way.

Re:Year of Linux on the Windows Desktop...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Linux is getting to desktops in an unconventional way.

With this, Linux desktop market penetration will soon be racing past one percent!!!

Re:

[Dwedit]

What about Steam Deck? It's the first time a Linux device has been highly desirable.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

I don't suspect a lot of people are buying their Deck(s) for the desktop experience...

Desktop on the Deck is interesting, but that little AMD CPU is a dog, so you don't really want to actually do anything with it.
The best use I've found for the desktop is run Proton Tricks against unsupported games containers to manually install packages that get them working with Proton.

Otherwise, ya, I really do love that it's running linux.
There was an easy way out. Valve could have done like every other person in

Re:

[exomondo]

What about Steam Deck? It's the first time a Linux device has been highly desirable.

In that instance people don't care about Linux, they care about Steam. The OS is irrelevant so long as it runs Steam, which is the point of an OS anyway: run the programs the user wants to run.

Re: Year of Linux on the Windows Desktop...

[Grokew]

I don't know, I feel an *E.E.E* like vibe to this.
I hope that I'm wrong.

Re:

[tlhIngan]

I don't know, I feel an *E.E.E* like vibe to this.
I hope that I'm wrong.

Tell me how the final E would happen?

Linux is completely open-source.

The first two E's are easy - Microsoft already did the first one, and they can easily add to Linux to do the second. But Linux is open-source and anything they do to it can be adopted by the community at large. it can also be rejected or an alternative implementation adopted, leaving Microsoft to be the sole maintainer of its branch of the feature.

Likewise how would yo

Re: Year of Linux on the Windows Desktop...

[simlox]

Actually, if the integration works too well, software vendors might skip the Windows version and make their Windows installer install the correct Linux version in WSL..

Wait! What?

[fahrbot-bot]

... systemd, the at-one-point maligned Linux system and service manager, ...

Only one point; when did that happen; did I miss it? Damn ...

Something seems wrong...

[93 Escort Wagon]

"Microsoft detailed a number of changes to commands now that the Store version of WSL is the default version, noting "wsl.exe --install will now automatically install the Store version of WSL" ...

Installing Linux from an .exe just seems wrong and dirty, somehow...

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Linux should be installed the one true way: cat zImage > /dev/fd0

Re:

[Fly Swatter]

Thanks to modern programming techniques, you would be lucky to fit a 'hello world' program onto that floppy....

-oh did I say program? I meant app!

Re:

[thegarbz]

It's only an app if it runs on a phone. Oh wait... https://liliputing.com/you-can... [liliputing.com]

Pretty sure I could have used guis before

[RightwingNutjob]

by running a third party x server on the windows side.

Re:

[gweihir]

Also, Cygwin does it just fine. Not really Linux though.

Re:

[fluffernutter]

My company doesn't allow me to run cygwin or mingw, but they allow me to use WSL. My only other access to linux would be to use it through Hyper-V which doesn't integrate at all, it doesn't even support a unified clipboard or being able to change desktop resolution on the fly.

Re:

[gweihir]

I see your IT people are idiots. All too common.

Re: Pretty sure I could have used guis before

[Billly Gates]

Cringe. I never liked Cygwin as it just translates posix to win32 calls in the worst ways where you get the bugs and quirks with both platforms.

Wsl you get a package manager which is a plus with a full distro to get up and running and no compiling needed and trying to get some dependency to work. There is always VMware workstation and hyper-V as ram, ssd drives and 8 to 16 core CPUs are plentiful now as an option too!

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Yup. I did it. It was a little janky, but it worked.

"once-maligned"?

[rpresser]

Systemd still sucks ass and always will.

Re:

[gweihir]

Indeed. That crap is not getting on any of my systems.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

And meanwhile, those that administrate the fucking overwhelming majority of linux systems on the planet wouldn't ever go back.

But you go ahead and do you. It's called freedom for a reason.

Re:

[gweihir]

You mean the clueless former Windows admins? Sure. Quality of a thing cannot and has never been determined by majority vote.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

clueless former Windows admins? lol.

You think the people (which includes me) who professionally operate fleets of servers, are "former Windows admins"?
What do you imagine, that racks and racks of Windows servers were converted to Linux?

You are such a fucking joke.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Sigh. I apologize for the last line.

Our interactions have been reasonable today, minus this one, and that's my fault.

Rather, I will say that undoubtedly, every complaint you have about systemd is likely varying levels of true.
However, the advantages are also equally true.

Critically important though, is that it continues to improve, and today is stable enough that it's used on nearly everything. All the benefits, less and less of the drawbacks.

systemd has taken over nearly universally. On the deskto

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

You guys are a meme among developers now.

Modern neckbeards without any of the accomplishments of the actual neckbeards under their belt.
Bitching and moaning from their positions of irrelevance while half the time either using a linux system that uses systemd (because, let's be honest, it Just Works Better), or fucking Windows.

You're fucking hipster luddites. Too cool for what's new, but too self-absorbed to use slackware.

Re:

[zoloto]

I use slackware on my workstation and my servers, thank you very much. systemd can go crank itself.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

Then I salute you for at least being an intellectually honest luddite.

However, the linux world at large, servers, embedded, and desktop... tried that 3 decades ago, and it isn't going back.

Re:

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

3 decades ago. Linux. Sure. The only believeable thing you said is that it wouldn't run. But that's coincidence because you never tried. I've run almost every unixoid since SunOS 6 including IRIX, some BSDs and HP-SUX but not even Solaris' Service Management Facility ever was remotely that shit show that systemd is. Not even HP-UX was that terrible because none of these OSes ever had a runlevel management that broke half of the existing services and had maintainers who would plainly refuse to fix it.

Re:

[DamnOregonian]

3 decades ago. Linux. Sure.

What are you talking about?
Slackware was released in 1993. My first slackware installation was in 1995.
Not coincidentally, it was also my last.

The only believeable thing you said is that it wouldn't run.

I didn't state anything that required belief.
I stated a fact (that the world 1: does not use slackware, and 2: has migrated to systemd), followed by an opinion that only a fool would disagree with: that the world is not going back to SysV init.

But that's coincidence because you never tried.

Now you're just being stupid. Don't be stupid. It's a bad look.

I've run almost every unixoid since SunOS 6 including IRIX, some BSDs and HP-SUX but not even Solaris' Service Management Facility ever was remotely that shit show that systemd is.

This is not remotely relevant. You definitely applied a goo

Re:

[thegarbz]

Systemd still sucks ass and always will.

Works fine here. What are you doing so very wrong?

great

[Osgeld]

now I can use the apps that are not useful and already ported over along with their 1998 era UI, can't wait to use some unsupported garbage written in WXLua from 2006

What is the use case

[linuxguy]

I use WSL frequently. But I have never thought to myself, I really need Linux GUI support. Almost everything I use is command line based. For GUI, there are already a ton of options within Windows. Are there any killer Linux UI apps that are badly needed in a Windows environment?

Re:

[JThundley]

This is what I fear. People will come to the same conclusion, as pretty much every gui program I have open right now also has a Windows version. The killer Linux UI app is the desktop environment, it's not having Windows. I love KDE and stuck with Windows 7 for gaming. I remote into Windows 10 and 11 computers and am disgusted by how people treat ads in the start menu as normal. The one app that doesn't run in Windows is Dolphin, Windows users don't really know what they're missing out on when it comes to f

Re:

[tepples]

Are there any killer Linux UI apps that are badly needed in a Windows environment?

If you are developing the Linux port of an application, it's nice to have a Linux environment in which to test such a port.

Yeah, OK!

[3seas]

First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win...does

As to the MS version of Linux..... how thorough is the code peer-reviewed?

Who wants the Windows UX anyway?

[RogueWarrior65]

I mean, really, the Windows UX is really godawful. I haven't seen a Linux GUI that's much better.