Raft WSL first 2021 version has released with the anticipated custom distros support

in

We released Raft about one year ago. During this time, we have received feedback, and we understood better our users' needs. Bringing proper custom distros support required us to rethink the user interface. Thinking in after you install your favorite distro, Raft's focus should be the installed ones; we made a UI redesign that allows you to accommodate your custom distros and allows you to concentrate on your installed ones. We also took advantage of this change to incorporate the most recent Fluent Design controls.

Here is the result; we hope that you enjoy the changes.

Changelog

  • Now, the Available and Installed distros are separated, giving more relevance to the installed ones.

  • The installed distributions are now grouped by distribution name and grouping; for example, all Ubuntus below the same icon.

  • Clicking the distro name or icon shows a short command bar with the most used commands.

  • The right-click menu was redesigned to be more intuitive.

  • Now, the default WSL version can be selected from the toolbar with one click.

  • The main screen now is responsive, reducing the icons and titles to give you more information even if the window is small.

  • Added some acrylic effects on the title bar to give a more fluent feeling.

Custom distributions support

  • Every distribution you manually imported with wsl --import is now visible and administered from Raft.

  • You can rename the imported distros in Raft

  • If you synchronize with Windows Terminal, the logos and labels of the custom distros will be migrated as well.

  • Now, when restoring a snapshot, a new option will be presented, allowing you to create a new custom distro instead of restoring in place.

  • Now, you can specify the default directory for all your newly created custom distros in the settings.

Miscellaneous

  • Added SLES 15.1 and SLES 15.2

  • Now, in ARM64, the available distros shown are restricted to the ones available for the ARM64 platform.

  • For Custom distros in Windows Terminal will now start with the home directory.

  • Added KDE Neon definition