Linux on Windows (WSL)

Getting started

From an administrator PowerShell, run wsl --install and restart. This installs WSL and the Ubuntu distribution. You then create a Linux user name and password on first launch. Open it from Windows Terminal, the Start menu, or by typing wsl in any PowerShell window.

wsl --list --online     # distributions you can install
wsl --list --verbose    # installed distributions and their WSL version
wsl --shutdown          # stop all running distributions

New installs use WSL 2, where Linux runs in a lightweight virtual machine with a real Linux kernel.

Two file systems

• Windows files are visible from Linux under /mnt/c/....
• Linux files are visible from Windows under \\wsl$\<distro> (or \\wsl.localhost\<distro>), and explorer.exe . opens the current Linux folder in File Explorer.
• Work on the side that matches your tools. Linux tools (Git, Node, Python, builds) are much faster and more reliable on files stored in the Linux home directory (~) than on /mnt/c. Keep Windows-tool projects on the Windows side.
• Remember Linux is case-sensitive even when the same file is also visible from Windows.

Mixing the two

You can call across the boundary: wsl ls -la runs a Linux command from PowerShell, and notepad.exe file.txt runs a Windows program from Bash. VS Code can open a WSL folder and run its extensions inside Linux.

Repositories and localhost

• Keep a repository on one side only. Do not clone the same repository in both Windows and WSL and expect them to stay in sync, because each is a separate clone with its own Git configuration (including SSH keys).
• Docker, databases and servers started in WSL are usually reachable from Windows at localhost.

Try it

Install WSL, create a folder in your Linux home directory, open it in File Explorer with explorer.exe ., and clone a small repository there. Compare how long git status takes there and on a clone under /mnt/c.