Windows Command Line

Windows Terminal, Console and Command Line, Windows Subsystem for Linux, WSL, Windows Package Manager

Open Sourcing a WSL Sample for Linux Distribution Maintainers and Sideloading Custom Linux Distributions

We are happy to announce that we have open sourced a WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) sample  for Linux distribution maintainers.  This sample allows distro maintainers to build WSL distro packages for the Microsoft Store and developers to create custom Linux distro packages for sideloading.  You can find the distro launcher repo on GitHub...

What’s new for the Command Line in Windows 10 version 1803

The next Windows 10 update includes many new features for Command Line developers. In this post we'll review WSL, Hyper-V, new tools, and UWP Console applications coming to the Microsoft Store.  We want to thank everyone who tried these updates via the Insiders program and provided feedback.  We really appreciate hearing from you both when ...

Debian GNU/Linux for WSL now available in the Windows Store

We’re excited to announce that you can now download & install Debian GNU/Linux via the Windows Store! After we announced that you’d be able to install and run multiple distro’s side-by-side on WSL , we are happy to introduce another one of your favorite Linux distros to the Windows Store. As promised, we are expanding your ability ...

Per-directory case sensitivity and WSL

If you have used the Windows Subsystem for Linux, you’re probably aware that it allows you to treat your Windows file systems (mounted under /mnt/c, /mnt/d, etc.) as case sensitive. This means, among other things, that you can create files whose names differ only by case (e.g. foo.txt and FOO.TXT). However, using those files in Windows was ...

Windows/WSL Interop with AF_UNIX

Starting in Windows Insider build 17093, a WSL application can communicate with a Windows application over Unix sockets. Back in December, we blogged about bringing AF_UNIX to Windows. Now, we're building on that functionality. Consider a requirement where you want to run some kind of service as a Windows application. Additionally, you would ...

OpenSSH in Windows 10!

SSH is one of the most important tools in the *NIX world, through which users communicate with shells, applications, and services running on remote machines, devices, VM's and containers. Windows users most often remotely access Windows machines, devices, VM's and Containers via the amazingly powerful Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) which, as ...

Chmod/Chown WSL Improvements

We've added new file system features to WSL in Insider Build 17063. You can now set the owner and group of files using chmod/chown and modify read/write/execute permissions in WSL. You can also create special files like fifos, unix sockets, and device files. We're introducing new mounting options with DrvFs for projecting permissions onto ...