With Windows 10 Creators Update one of the features that got released publicly is Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). But it was available for Windows 10 Insiders for almost like a year now and was initially announced at Build 2016. WSL basically let's you run Linux on Windows. If you are thinking about a VM, No, it's not a Virtual Machine.[1]
Configuring WSL on Windows shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, by following these steps[2] you can configure WSL pretty easily. Once you have configured WSL, you should be able use Bash on Ubuntu, just by opening up the Command Prompt/PowerShell and running bash command.
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| WSL |
Or you can Search for Bash in Windows, and there should be a desktop app named Bash on Ubuntu on Windows.
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| Bash On Ubuntu On Windows |
Currently under WSL only Ubuntu is supported, may be in the future Microsoft might support different flavors of Linux.
On WSL, one of the things that fascinates me more is the File System that is already mounted for you.
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| File System |
And through the bash I can just run mkdir and the folder will be appearing inside Windows Explorer the same time.
And most importantly I can run .NET Core Apps on WSL. I have installed .NET Core on my WSL, (again it's pretty easy, just follow the relevant steps described here[3]) and created an ASP.NET Core HelloWorld application.
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| .NET Core on WSL |
And I can just browse the site from a Web Browser in my Windows OS. Isn't that just great?
Happy Coding.Regards,
Jaliya
References
- ^ Windows 10 Creators Update (blogs.windows.com)
- ^ these steps (msdn.microsoft.com)
- ^ described here (www.microsoft.com)
