Have you heard that you can run Linux on Windows? Yes, it’s true and sometimes you might be already aware of this feature called “Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)”. Originally, it was known as “bash on Windows” and it allows you to run same bash commands using Windows PowerShell. But, Windows Subsystem for Linux allows you to run commands other than basic bash commands. Actually, It was sitting in my Windows machine quite while a time and I thought to publish this article in my blog.
Basically, you can use commands such as grep, sed, awk and tools such as vim, emacs, tux along with the languages such as Python, Ruby, Java, node.js, C/C++, C#, F# and etc. Basic package management also can be done and, you can immensely enjoy this wonderful Windows feature without freshly installing a linux distribution in your computer.
Below Linux distros available at the time of writing this article:
- Ubuntu
- OpenSUSE
- SLES
- Kali linux
- Dabian GNU/Linux
It is obvious that this feature will continue to evolve and we can see many added features in the near future.
We Love Linux On Windows 10
In this article, I use my Windows 10 machine and I’m going to install the Windows Subsystem for Linux. First of all I recommend you to fully patch the Operating System and, just go to control panel and we are going to install this feature using “Turn Windows Feature On or Off” option. When you are scrolling down the Windows Features You can see this “Windows Subsystem for Linux” feature and it will not enabled by default.
Or else, you can also use the Windows PowerShell to do it for you, use below command if you intend to use it.
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
Hit “Y” to accept the feature installation
Windows Subsystem for linux feature will be enabled and you need to reboot your system after that
After successfully rebooting the system just go to Microsoft Store and Search “WSL” to find the Available Linux distros
Just select the linux distribution and install it on your system
After completion the successfully installation of linux subsystem, just go to the start menu and open the OS icon
It will take sometime to initially start the subsystem
Provide a username for the user account and twice to setting up the password
So, that’s it just play around with the “Windows Subsystem for Linux“.
