Get WSL2 working on Windows 10

Unless you’ve been living in a cave devoid of technology for the last year, you’ve likely already heard of (and tried) Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). As per Microsoft’s documentation:

The Windows Subsystem for Linux lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment — including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications — directly on Windows, unmodified, without the overhead of a virtual machine.

Basically, it’s a compatibility layer for the Linux kernel, allowing you to run Linux binaries in Windows.

WSL2 takes this one step further, by including the actual Linux kernel running in a light-weight virtual machine. One of the best things about this is significantly better file I/O performance and full system call compatibility — meaning you can do things like running Docker.

Here’s the instructions for setting up WSL2 on Windows 10.

Enable Windows Insider Program

• Sign up to the Windows Insider program.
• Enable Windows Insider program on your system. Make sure to sign up to the ‘Fast’ track.

• Update Windows