Linux Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.4.9 Pre-release released

My view on this is simply especially if you have Win 11 Pro etc is simply to use HYPER-V and install any verion of Linux you like as a VM. The performance of HYPER-V is so much better so the Linux VM can run in a minimal of space (and CPU resources) and if you install SAMBA you can file share with Windows, read / write Windows and Linux File systems, stream from Linux disks you might have on a Linux NAS in your system etc etc.

In addition you get genuine Linux kernels - not the specialized thing Ms creates for its WSL distributions.

Originally the whole idea of WSL was great -- I think the time for that application now has passed .

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

My view on this is simply especially if you have Win 11 Pro etc is simply to use HYPER-V and install any verion of Linux you like as a VM. The performance of HYPER-V is so much better so the Linux VM can run in a minimal of space (and CPU resources) and if you install SAMBA you can file share with Windows, read / write Windows and Linux File systems, stream from Linux disks you might have on a Linux NAS in your system etc etc.

In addition you get genuine Linux kernels - not the specialized thing Ms creates for its WSL distributions.

Originally the whole idea of WSL was great -- I think the time for that application now has passed .

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

That might be worth looking into for me on my next work station build. I especially like the idea of using a genuine Linux kernel. Thanks for sharing.

Scannerman said:

That might be worth looking into for me on my next work station build. I especially like the idea of using a genuine Linux kernel. Thanks for sharing.

Click to expand...

Hi there

The only possible good use I could see from using WSL is that you could have a "Unified desktop" where you could pin Linux GUI type applications to the Windows menu, taskbar or desktop - (rather like the old XP mode available in Win 7). However getting decent GUI apps to run in the WSL is quite a bit of a pain and with the Linux latest kernels not supporting the RDC protocol any more (Wayland rather than X11 is the new Windowing system) it really doesn't to me make sense especially as it only takes minutes to install typical Linux distros as VM's on HYPER-V with even quite modest modern hardware.

Also running as VM's you can remove, change,run concurrent versions etc etc. With the WSL you'll have problems if you want to run 2 or more different Linux versions !!!

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

With the WSL you'll have problems if you want to run 2 or more different Linux versions !!!

Click to expand...

A friend of mine down east tried this and got so fed up he went over to Arch Linux instead. I don't have that kind of aptitude. Or, maybe I'm just lazy. lol

Scannerman said:

A friend of mine down east tried this and got so fed up he went over to Arch Linux instead. I don't have that kind of aptitude. Or, maybe I'm just lazy. lol

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Once you set up HYPER-V - just try running any "live distro" of Linux as a VM - it's already "pre-installed" so you don't have to do anything other than boot. !!!

I'd suggest Fedora 41 KDE version as it's the "Most Windows like" to start with. Also networking with HYPER-V isn't a dog either !!

Download the LIVE ISO from here :


Then create the VM in Hyper-V -- quick create is a reasonable Wizard for this and use the iso as the boot install.


Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Once you set up HYPER-V - just try running any "live distro" of Linux as a VM - it's already "pre-installed" so you don't have to do anything other than boot. !!!

I'd suggest Fedora 41 KDE version as it's the "Most Windows like" to start with. Also networking with HYPER-V isn't a dog either !!

Download the LIVE ISO from here :

Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop

The Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop Edition is a powerful Fedora-based operating system utilizing the KDE Plasma Desktop as the main user interface. Fedora KDE Plasma Desktop comes with many pre-selected top quality applications that suit all modern desktop use cases - from online communication like...

fedoraproject.org

Then create the VM in Hyper-V -- quick create is a reasonable Wizard for this and use the iso as the boot install.


Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

I'll try to keep this in mind. I'm still waiting delivery of the system board I have in mind for this. Thanks!

@Scannerman

Created the live Fedora 41 KDE VM using bog standard "Hyper-V Quick create" with default stuff selected apart from checkpoints which I disabled - don't need those for test systems.

On a modest mini PC once I'd downloaded the ISO the VM took less than 3 mins to create and boot !! -- I'm not bothered about sound yet because all I wanted to show you that using Hyper-V is easy to create Linux VMs and the example is a "POC" (Proof of concept"). Simply ensure on Windows HYPER-V is enabled (you don't need the other settings such as "VirtualMachine" etc.

1) Create VM (boot from local installation source and point to the iso) and connect



2) running



to get that fastfetch program - very handy to see quickly what you are running and what your basic hardware is - in this case the default "Virtual hardware"

1) after logon - just start konsole and type su. As this is a live distro no password etc required to enter root (or become a super user) then 2) type dnf install fastfetch.

Note though as a Live distro any changes you make are lost when you reboot again. But it's a good test tosee if you like the distro.



Cheers
jimbo

Tempted to try it right now but just got out of the BIOS to retrieve my GUI for my intel soft RAID.

Think this system board will have the bandwidth to handle such an extensive virtual machine?

Scannerman said:

That might be worth looking into for me on my next work station build. I especially like the idea of using a genuine Linux kernel. Thanks for sharing.

Click to expand...

On the other hand, why not just a few hard drives and install a few versions of native Linux - then runQEMU/KVM, VirtualBox, VMwaRE ws OR gNOME-BOXES -all of which are non-proprietary and run Windows in a VM

martyfelker said:

On the other hand, why not just a few hard drives and install a few versions of native Linux - then runQEMU/KVM, VirtualBox, VMwaRE ws OR gNOME-BOXES -all of which are non-proprietary and run Windows in a VM

Click to expand...

I was preparing to do something similar when I was running Mint on this old archaic work station, but then I got silly and replaced my Win 8.1 with Win 11. Things just got progressively weird after that and I got tired of losing my Linux boot via CSM. Not in the mood to reinstall Win 11 to make it run with CSM turned off and since I can't really run a legit copy of Win 11 on this thing I'll be phasing over to the Sage.

Scannerman said:

I was preparing to do something similar when I was running Mint on this old archaic work station, but then I got silly and replaced my Win 8.1 with Win 11. Things just got progressively weird after that and I got tired of losing my Linux boot via CSM. Not in the mood to reinstall Win 11 to make it run with CSM turned off and since I can't really run a legit copy of Win 11 on this thing I'll be phasing over to the Sage.

Click to expand...

That's my preferred option -- but I was just testing the performance of HYPER-V these days -- very good but still not as flexible as QEMU/KVM with simple bridged networking annd dynamic redirection of USB devices. I was also demonstrating to @Scannerman how easy it was to quickly run a live Linux distro with HYPER-V rather than bother with the Linux WSL.

Running any Windows versions on KVM/QEMU as VM's is a doddle too. Plus you can emulate TPM, also bypass sec boot if you need to for W11 VM.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Running any Windows versions on KVM/QEMU as VM's is a doddle too. Plus you can emulate TPM, also bypass sec boot if you need to for W11 VM.

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Not sure that emulation would be enough for the Broadwell chip since Microsoft ruled it out. Even with the TPM hardware I had to tweak Win 11 in order to run it, but the X299 also has some other features that I like and the LGA 2066 CPU I plan on using is slightly more powerful than the LGA 2011-3 chip I'm using presently.