On Thu, Mar 25 2021 at 08:02:32 PM, Dan Hitt <dan.h...@gmail.com> wrote: > Does anybody have any experience running debian on a WSL > (windows-system-for-linux) machine? >
I use WSL (not the newer WSL2) on a work computer. > I need to get a machine for family use, but i would also like to be able to > also use it myself. So i would like to be able to ssh in, back up files > into it, and do other tasks, maybe even a little programming on it. (A mac > can handle all of this sort of thing quite easily, but has a huge price > tag.) > I'm assuming you have a reason for not just running debian on the computer directly. > At a job a couple of years ago i put WSL on the windows desktop machine > they gave me, but i was not in a position to be very aggressive about > remote usage, and, as i understand it, WSL has evolved since then. And, > even then, WSL was more than just a virtual machine guest. > > In particular, i would like to > (a) be able to remotely access the WSL debian just as if it were debian > box, including having ssh, rsync, and x windows As long as you get sshd running in your WSL debian, you will be able to ssh fine. X forwarding should also work, but I've never tried it myself. > (b) occasionally do the same sorts of things from its console You'll need a Windows X server installed. vcxsrv is open source and works well for me. > (c) not have to manually set up and keep alive daemons or special > services, A web search will find instructions for configuring WSL daemons to startup as Windows services. This will be a one-time process. > (d) as an extra, keep the debian and windows things on separate disks, if > possible. No idea how to do this. The debian install will go to a directory in your %LocalAppData%; I guess you could mount a separate disk to that path, but I've not tried this. > > I'm not looking for a multi-boot situation, as i want to be able to access > the WSL apparatus while the console is engaged with doing windows > operations for somebody else (and i guess the converse as well, although > i'm pretty foggy about sshing into windows). > If you set up sshd in your WSL debian, you will end up with a shell in the debian environment. You can navigate to the Windows filesystem if you need to. You could also setup an ssh server on Windows if you like. I hear OpenSSH server is available as a feature to enable in Windows. > Thanks in advance for any advice or pointers. -- regards, kushal
