Month: March 2019

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Installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on Windows 10

Microsoft has been doing a lot to promote linux  interoperability on windows.  I see this as a great step in the right direction, after decades of a closed and exclusive culture that has been a pain for cross-os users like myself.

Here is a quick and dirty rundown of how (March 2019) to install Ubuntu on Windows 10:

See here for the full rundown: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

Install the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Before installing any Linux distros for WSL, you must ensure that the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” optional feature is enabled:

  1. Open PowerShell as Administrator (search for Powershell, right click, run as administrator), and run this command: 
    Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
  2. Restart your computer when prompted.

Install your Linux Distribution of Choice

Go to the Microsoft Store and search for Ubuntu.  Install it.

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Once you are in Ubuntu, there are a few things to do that will make everything nicer…

Update Ubuntu and setup ssh server
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install openssh-server
sudo service ssh start

Fix character encoding issue (until this is fixed upstream)
sudo gunzip –keep /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/UTF-8.gz
sudo dpkg-reconfigure –frontend=noninteractive locales

Setup SSH under your user
mkdir .ssh
chmod 700 .ssh
touch .ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
(put your public key in there)
Setup PuTTY
You can then configure PuTTY to connect to 127.0.0.1 port 22 with your username and key (ideally from Pageant)
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You can access your c drive under /mnt/c/
You can access your desktop using /mnt/c/Users/YOU/Desktop
This enables you to write convenient scripts in ubuntu that affect windows files on your desktop for example.