Windows 10: confusion after WSL1 to WSL2 upgrade

I ran through the Msft docs for updating from WSL1 to WSL2, including updating the WSL2 linux kernel. No problems, worked just like the guide.


Then I ran into this strangeness. If I open Powershell and type bash, and type wsl.exe -l -v, it says Ubuntu, Running 2.

If I open the Ubuntu app from the store, it says Ubuntu, Running 1.


Why are they different?


And one more thing... in the wsl2 powershell/bash window, if I type explorer.exe I get the \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\me directory. If I put files in there they do not appear in the wsl2 home directory! Talk about catch-22. I finally get a wsl2 window running and I cant put my files in it. If you look at the dates of the .bashrc and other stuff, they are different in both windows. Different locations. Explorer shows the wsl1 directory, but not the other.


I hope you get my dilemma and can help, thanks.



:)

 

WSL2 will be generally available in Windows 10 version 2004

Source: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/comma...-version-2004/

 

New Windows 10 Insider Preview Fast+Skip Build 18980 (20H1) - Sept. 11 Insider

Hi folks

WSL2 breaks running any GUI programs you had working with WSL1 -- seen some suggestions on Google but I'll wait until some more people have played with it -- seems there's a problem with accessing the display properly due to generated IP addresses -- but I'm not fiddling with that any more.

Running Ubuntu LTS on WSL1 with lightweight LXDE desktop works - some GUI programs run as they do if you install the KDE desktop.

WSL2 breaks the whole kybosh -- but for running command line scripts and non GUI executables it seems fine (WSL2) . You need to install an X-server on windows and use the XLaunch icon on your desktop before starting the Linux GUI -- also you'll need to export DISPLAY=0:0 before using your command on wsl to launch the GUI e.g startlxde. (Lxde is s super dooper lightweight desktop gui which is good for testing if the thing works --you can install more heavyweight stuff once you've got the X-Server working properly.

OK WSL isn't meant to be a complete Linux desktop distro or a fully endowed virtual machine - but what's wrong in testing these things to their limits !!!!

What is nice is you can reset or switch your Linux distro to WSL1 or WSL2 back and forth without having to re-install your distro -- you can also set the default WSL level -- I'd keep the default at 1 until WSL2 is a bit more commonly used -- most things (non GUI) that work on WSL1 will probably work on WSL2 -- file manager is good on WSL2 and you can natively access Linux file systems (with long file names too !!!!!) over a LAN or even attached to the Windows machine. The Windows machine is simply another server as far as WSL2 is concerned.

Cheers
jimbo

 

WSL2 on separate disk

Read through this:

Installation Instructions for WSL 2

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl2-install

Cheers.