Skip to main content

WSL–Getting started experience

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets developers run a Linux environment directly on Windows, without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine or dual-boot setup. It is a very convenient way for developers to access and use a Linux environment. But although it not that difficult to get started, it can still take some time before you really understand how to use it.

If you also had some trouble to get started with WSL2, or even never took a look at it before, I have some good news for you. Starting from WSL 2.4.4(Pre-release), you get a ‘Getting Started’ experience. Let me show…

Getting Started experience

  • First we need to make sure that we download and install the latest pre-release version. You can find the correct installer here.
  • Download the msi file and run the installer.


  • After the installation has completed, open the freshly installed WSL Settings app:

 


  • The WSL settings app gives you easy access to a lot of the options that can be configured when using WSL2. This alone makes it a great addition to the current WSL2 experience. But there is more…

 

  • Click on the Welcome at WSL button in the left bottom corner. This will open up a new window that gives you easy access to some of the most common scenario’s when using WSL2.

 

  • This includes
    • Working across file systems

 

    • GUI apps

 

    • GPU acceleration

 

    • Networking integration

 

    • Distro management

 

  • It also gives you easy access to the Docker Desktop integration:

 

  • And how to debug and run applications in WSL2 through VSCode:

 

This is a great addition to the WSL2 experience and really helpful to get started.

More information

What’s new in the Windows Subsystem for Linux in November 2024 - Windows Command Line

Windows Subsystem for Linux Documentation | Microsoft Learn

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Podman– Command execution failed with exit code 125

After updating WSL on one of the developer machines, Podman failed to work. When we took a look through Podman Desktop, we noticed that Podman had stopped running and returned the following error message: Error: Command execution failed with exit code 125 Here are the steps we tried to fix the issue: We started by running podman info to get some extra details on what could be wrong: >podman info OS: windows/amd64 provider: wsl version: 5.3.1 Cannot connect to Podman. Please verify your connection to the Linux system using `podman system connection list`, or try `podman machine init` and `podman machine start` to manage a new Linux VM Error: unable to connect to Podman socket: failed to connect: dial tcp 127.0.0.1:2655: connectex: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. That makes sense as the podman VM was not running. Let’s check the VM: >podman machine list NAME         ...
Read more

Azure DevOps/ GitHub emoji

I’m really bad at remembering emoji’s. So here is cheat sheet with all emoji’s that can be used in tools that support the github emoji markdown markup: All credits go to rcaviers who created this list.
Read more

VS Code Planning mode

After the introduction of Plan mode in Visual Studio , it now also found its way into VS Code. Planning mode, or as I like to call it 'Hannibal mode', extends GitHub Copilot's Agent Mode capabilities to handle larger, multi-step coding tasks with a structured approach. Instead of jumping straight into code generation, Planning mode creates a detailed execution plan. If you want more details, have a look at my previous post . Putting plan mode into action VS Code takes a different approach compared to Visual Studio when using plan mode. Instead of a configuration setting that you can activate but have limited control over, planning is available as a separate chat mode/agent: I like this approach better than how Visual Studio does it as you have explicit control when plan mode is activated. Instead of immediately diving into execution, the plan agent creates a plan and asks some follow up questions: You can further edit the plan by clicking on ‘Open in Editor’: ...
Read more