3 steps to run Ubuntu in Windows 10

I just started a new job this week, and the standard machine is HP EliteBook with touchscreen and Windows 10. I have been a Ubuntu and Mac user in the past couple of years, may be it is a good time for me to familiarise with the new Windows OS. I was told by many people that Windows 10 is the greatest Windows OS that they have ever used. Let me check it out in the next a few months.

The thing that I miss most is all the useful tools (dig, openssl, ssh etc) that come with Linux by default. In the old days, you can do it by installing CygWin. But now there is another way to do it – enable the ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux‘ (it still in Beta at the time of writing).

Here are the 3 steps:

1) Enable ‘Developer mode’ in Windows Settings > Update & Security, then restart Windows.

2) Turn on the ‘Windows Subystem for Linux (Beta)’ feature in ‘Turn Windows feature on or off’, the restart Windows.

3) Install Bash, open a windows terminal then type ‘bash’, then answer a few questions to install it.

That’s it, just type bash in any Windows terminal, it will launch the Ubuntu bash terminal for you. This is how it looks on my machine:

The home folder path is %localappdata%\lxss\home, and you can access the C drive via /mnt/c. Just note that permissions are inherited from your credentials that you start the bash terminal. e.g You cannot modify windows system file if you start the bash terminal as a normal user, unless you run it as Windows administrator.

Type ‘lxrun‘ in Windows terminal, there are a few things you do. Like install/ uninstall the subsystem, setup the default users.

Want to know how the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) work? Check this out: