A real Linux kernel and userland running alongside Windows — architecture, integration, and daily use.
A complete walkthrough running several separate Linux distros side by side under WSL — installing additional distros, switching between them, and setting a specific one as your default.
Each WSL2 distro's filesystem lives inside a dynamically-expanding .vhdx file on your Windows drive. It grows automatically as you use it — but deleting files inside WSL doesn't shrink it back down, and that's expected, not a bug.
A complete walkthrough getting WSL2 and a Linux distro running from a clean Windows installation — the single-command path, and what to check if it doesn't work cleanly the first time.
You deleted gigabytes of files inside a WSL distro, but your Windows C: drive shows no space freed up at all. This is expected dynamic-VHD behavior, not a bug — and it has a specific, direct fix.
Training a machine learning model inside WSL2 using your actual GPU sounds like it shouldn't work through a virtual machine layer at all. Here's the specific virtualized GPU mechanism that makes it possible.
WSL dropped its 'Preview' label in the Microsoft Store on November 22, 2022, decoupling its update cycle from Windows itself entirely — meaning WSL improvements could ship on their own schedule going forward.
Docker Desktop configured to use the WSL2 backend suddenly can't see your distro, or containers fail to start with confusing errors. Here's how to work through the specific integration points that commonly break.
For years, software expecting systemd to be running as PID 1 simply didn't work correctly inside WSL. That changed in September 2022, closing one of WSL's longest-standing compatibility gaps.
For years, WSL distros ran without systemd — meaning services expecting it simply failed. Here's why that gap existed, and what changed architecturally to finally close it.
Installing Ubuntu via the Microsoft Store feels like installing any other app. Underneath, WSL distros are root filesystem tarballs registered with a small platform layer — and that model is what makes import/export and custom distros possible.