WSL - mantoskez/mantas-wiki GitHub Wiki

Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL) is a tool provided by Microsoft to run Linux natively on Windows. It’s designed to be a seamless experience, essentially providing a full Linux shell that can interact with your Windows filesystem.

Not Just a Virtual Machine Lets start with what WSL isn’t—it’s not a full Linux desktop experience that you might get by running Ubuntu in VirtualBox, for example. It does technically use virtualization for performance reasons, but it’s very different from running a full VM. It’s all managed for you, and just provides a simple shell and environment for you to do your work and use familiar bash commands like git, ssh, and all the other tools that come with the chosen distribution.

Basically, WSL allows you to install a full Linux distribution as an app from the app store. You can simply download Ubuntu (or the distro of your choice), install it, and have it available as a app you can launch, or a profile in your terminal to run alongside CMD or Powershell. While the simplest explanation is that it “lets you run bash on Windows,” it’s more than just a shell; you can install programs using apt and customize it like a regular Linux instance.

WSL is intended to give developers and bash veterans the Linux shell experience despite having to use Windows as the primary OS. It offers the best of both worlds by allowing you to run Windows apps, like Visual Studio, alongside a Linux shell for easier command line access. While the simplest explanation is that it “lets you run bash on Windows,” it’s more than just a shell; you can install programs using apt and customize it like a regular Linux instance.

WSL is intended to give developers and bash veterans the Linux shell experience despite having to use Windows as the primary OS. It offers the best of both worlds by allowing you to run Windows apps, like Visual Studio, alongside a Linux shell for easier command line access.