Book Image

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

By : Stuart Leeks
Book Image

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

By: Stuart Leeks

Overview of this book

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) allows you to run native Linux tools alongside traditional Windows applications. Whether you’re developing applications across multiple operating systems or looking to add more tools to your Windows environment, WSL offers endless possibilities. You’ll start by understanding what WSL is and learn how to install and configure WSL along with different Linux distros. Next, you'll learn techniques that allow you to work across both Windows and Linux environments. You’ll discover how to install and customize the new Windows Terminal. We'll also show you how to work with code in WSL using Visual Studio Code (VS Code). In addition to this, you’ll explore how to work with containers with Docker and Kubernetes, and how to containerize a development environment using VS Code. While Microsoft has announced support for GPU and GUI applications in an upcoming release of WSL, at the time of writing these features are either not available or only in early preview releases. This book focuses on the stable, released features of WSL and giving you a solid understanding of the amazing techniques that you can use with WSL today. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to configure WSL and Windows Terminal to suit your preferences, and productively use Visual Studio Code for developing applications with WSL.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1: Introduction, Installation, and Configuration
5
Section 2:Windows and Linux – A Winning Combination
11
Section 3: Developing with the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Chapter 3: Getting Started with Windows Terminal

Microsoft has announced support for GUI applications in an upcoming release of Windows Subsystem for Linux, but at the time of writing this is not available even in early preview form. In this book, we opted to focus on the stable, released features of WSL so it covers the current, command line centric view of WSL. As a result, it makes sense to equip yourself with a good terminal experience. The default Console experience in Windows (used by cmd.exe) is lacking in many areas and the new Windows Terminal offers lots of benefits. In this chapter, we'll take a look at some of these benefits, as well as how to install and get started with Windows Terminal.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following main topics:

  • Introducing Windows Terminal
  • Installing Windows Terminal
  • Using Windows Terminal
  • Configuring Windows Terminal