To Enable WSL2

• Install Windows 10 Insider Preview build 18917, currently in Fast Ring.

• Open PowerShell as an Administrator and run:

  Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

• Restart

To Convert Pengwin to WSL2

• Open PowerShell and run:

  wsl --set-version WLinux 2

To Convert Pengwin back to WSL1

• Open PowerShell and run:

  wsl --set-version WLinux 1

Known Issues

• GUI apps will not work on WSL2 due to changes in networking. Workaround is to run:

  X410.exe /Public

  or

  vcxsrv -ac

  export DISPLAY=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2}'):0

  An update for this is coming soon, per the WSL team.

• Windows symbolic links cannot be traversed on WSL2.

• IP addresses are dynamically assigned inside WSL2 which can cause networking issues, see GUI issue above.

• It is possible to set WSL2 to be your default WSL with:

  wsl --set-default-version 2

  but this is not recommended at this time because installing a new WSL distro from the Store with WSL2 as the default is temporarily broken.

Tools to convert are coming to pengwin-setup shortly.

Official Microsoft documentation.