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WSL puts Linux on Windows desktops
Sublease
No Support for Daemons
WSL reaches its limits if you need to run a daemon because it lacks a full-fledged launch environment such as Systemd. Commands like reboot, shutdown, and systemctl do not work, and it is therefore not possible to install server services for automatic startup. Even hardware-related commands such as the dd image-building tool do not work. A physical Linux system or one installed in a VM is still the better choice for these sorts of tasks.
Conclusions
Depending on the application, WSL is a practical alternative to full-blown Linux VMs. Compared with the VMs isolated in Hyper-V or similar hypervisors, the WSL advantage is direct interaction with files and folders under Windows. With the tools presented here, even graphical Linux applications under Windows are no longer a problem. Moreover, Microsoft is continually expanding the range of functions [8].
The roadmap for the future version 2 of WSL includes support for Docker containers, as well as migration of the architecture from an emulated to a modified Linux kernel – and the kernel will be completely open source [9].
Infos
- Executing Linux ELF64 binaries: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/04/22/windows-subsystem-for-linux-overview/
- Pico processes: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/05/23/pico-process-overview/
- Background processes in WSL: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/background-task-support-in-wsl/
- Windows and Ubuntu interoperability: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/10/19/windows-and-ubuntu-interoperability/
- Filesystem support: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/06/15/wsl-file-system-support/
- Interoperability between Windows and Linux: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/interop
- X server X410: https://token2shell.com/x410/
- Extended functionality in WSL: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/release-notes
- Open source approach of WSL: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/release-notes
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