Setting Up Windows Subsystem for Linux

Linux on Windows? I Mean, Why Not?

Hello, World! In this tutorial, I will show you how easy it is to set up Windows Subsystem for Linux. Let’s go for it!

Installation

To install WSL, open up a PowerShell prompt (or a Command prompt, but if you are still using cmd.exe, I feel sorry for you) and run the following command:

wsl --install

Restart your computer after the command finishes execution and you should now have WSL installed on your computer. That’s it! I told you it was easy!

By default, Ubuntu will be the Linux distribution installed (for obvious reasons), but if you’d like to specify a particular distro to install during the initial installation of WSL, you have to get the available Linux distributions by running the command:

wsl --list --online

And then you can install the desired Linux distribution using the following command:

wsl --install -d "DISTRIBUTION_NAME_GOES_HERE"