Ubuntu subsystem inside Windows 10

I’m a Linux person, but for quite while I was working on Window 7 system because it was approved in a company where I was working. Because of that, I have to use virtual box with installed Ubuntu. That wasn’t handy, and I did not like it at all.

In windows 10 there is an option to use Linux as a subsystem, which I did on my home PC.

This may seem crazy, but it actually works very well!

How to install Ubuntu on your Windows 10:

1. In cmd or a power shell in administrator mode run command to enable subsystem:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

2. Restart your PC

3. In Microsoft store search for Ubuntu and click install. You can also install other Linux distributive, for example, Kali Linux.

4. After installation finds Ubuntu in your programs and launches it.

5. It will take a while for a first setup

How to use it:

1. In cmd or PowerShell simply run

bash

to activate Ubuntu bash terminal.

fully functioning Ubuntu terminal inside Windows cmd

Because it runs as a subsystem, I have access to the Windows file system. For example, disc C can be found in /mnt/c/

This fact opens a lot of possibilities, for example, I can host local Postgresql or use cron or any other cool stuff from Ubuntu inside my windows PC. So if for some reason you are using Windows 10, but you need the functionality of Linux, you can forget about VirtualMachines and run Linux as a subsystem!

Installation guide from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10