A beginner’s tour to What/Why/How of WSL!!

Linux Terminal inside your windows machine

Photo by Sai Kiran Anagani on Unsplash

All the best people in life seem to like LINUX.
~Steve Wozniak

You might be here with a thought “What in the world WSL is?” or it could be “I have seen this WSL in so many places. What is it?” or just wanna know-how to get it up and running in your system.

One of the reason you are looking into WSL is that you don’t want to dualboot your system or don’t have the power to run a virtual machine ( Like me :) ). Well whatever the reason is you are here so let’s dive into it.. shall-we.

What is WSL?

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is kinda system that let’s developers use all the goods of Linux (command-line, shell) without leaving the comfort of (TotallyNotOpenSource) Windows. That means you can use most of the CLI-utilities, tools and apps in your windows without installing any kind of virtual system.

Why WSL?

A- Because it’s Linux that’s why me mate 👾.
B- You don’t need to dualboot Linux anymore just to get the power of shell or install virtual machines eating up your ram.

What you can do:

• Use Linux shell commands duh..
• Say hello to sudo.
• Use Linux distro package manager
• Act like a hacker using Windows :3
• zsh.. which means customize your shell with theme like powerlevel10k ..❤

All this and much more without leaving your Goo’ol Windows ❤.

Now comes the How :3

Follow the steps below and it’ll be like riding the wind (Trust me).

Step 1: Enable WSL

You have to enable WSL first which might be disabled by default in your case in order to install a Linux distro on windows:

Open Command prompt or Powershell in Admin mode and run the following command (just copy-paste it):

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

Step 2: Enable Virtual machine Ft.

This again might be disabled in your case and yeah WSL is like a virtual machine after-all but takes less resources to get you the goods :).

You know the drill copy paste it in CMD/powershell in Admin mode:

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

Step 3: Download Linux Distro of your dream 🤩

1. Goto Microsoft Store and select your distro or just search Linux in the MS Store.

2. Select “Get” to install the distro.

When the first time you will open the newly installed Linux distro (can find it in the start-menu) it takes some time to load and unpack all the files and install it on your system.

After the installation is successful! It’ll prompt you to create a new user with a UNIX username (users name) and a password for security.

Voilà! you have successfully integrated Linux distro into your Windows system as Subsystem now go and enjoy all the hacker feel from the terminal you got there :D. (Just type “wsl” on your CMD and you’re good to go!)

In case you have any query or found something that is not correct do let me know in the comments.

(For explicit understanding visit: Microsoft docs on WSL)

Signing off Soyokaze ❤.