Microsoft Open-Sources WSL Sample To Let More Linux Distributions Run On Windows

Written by Michael Larabel in Microsoft on 26 March 2018 at 02:49 PM EDT. 36 Comments
MICROSOFT
The process is now more clear how Linux distributions can be adapted to run on Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) with the company now having open-sourced a "WSL Sample" to build WSL distribution packages for the Microsoft Store and for allowing custom Linux distribution packages to be sideloaded onto systems.

The WSL-DistroLauncher is what is now open-source and is a C++ code-base offering a launcher that can be customized for particular distributions for the steps to get to a log-in shell, running commands, and setting configuration values.

The newly-opened code is available on GitHub via Microsoft/WSL-DistroLauncher. The code is under an MIT license.

Microsoft's Tara Raj has written a post further explaining the WSL Sample.

Coincidentally I am in the process of running some fresh WSL Linux benchmarks following Debian recently being added to the Microsoft Store. Those results should be out in the next day or two.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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