The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has become an increasingly prominent element within Windows 10/11, by allowing the installation and use – in an increasingly accessible way for the average user – Linux distributions within a Windows system, without the need to resort to the use of virtual machines.
But WSL has a limitation: the catalog of precompiled distributions deployable in the same (which we can check in the Microsoft Store), is the least scarce. And also, among these there are payment (even if the non-WSL version of them is 100% free) or, directly, maintained by third parties, which raises concerns about its possible manipulation.
So,It wouldn’t be great if we could install any Linux distribution we wanted on WSL? Well, that is precisely one of the goals of the new EasyWSL project (the other is merely to facilitate the installation of the ‘official’ distributions).
LINUX and GNU: LINUX: WHAT IT IS and HOW IT WORKS
How to install a Docker Hub image as a distribution in our WSL
What will allow us to do EasyWSL is, simply, convert almost any Linux Docker image into a Linux distribution image adapted to run on WSL. Its developers, Red Code Labs, say that they wanted to continue bringing Linux to Windows “taking a step beyond what Microsoft offers in its store.”
“We wonder why not use the images available in Docker Hub, to thus achieve that our possibilities are expandedAlso, as the Docker Hub distributions are maintained by the original managers of each project, which clears doubts about back doors and malicious code.
So that, How to convert a linux docker image to one for WSL? Easy: we start EasyWSL and, after choosing ‘19. Specify a docker image‘(see screenshot above), we must write the name of the distribution to install and the corresponding label with the following syntax:
image: tag // Example to install Photon OS: ‘photon: latest’
Once that is done, we will give the chosen distribution a name, and the program will begin the process of downloading and converting the Docker image. It is possible that at this stage some error indicators will appear on the screen, which, however, will not prevent the installation of the indicated distribution.
The problem with this method for installing distributions is that those that come from Docker Hub will not appear later in the Windows Start menu, which will force us to run Linux by typing ‘wsl -d [nombre]‘on the command line.
Via | Bleeping Computer