I prefer WSL to shut down when I close the last terminal. I also want easy access to the keys I keep in my Windows ssh-agent. For a long time, trying to get both meant compromising. I tried a few hacks that kept WSL running forever, forcing me to always remember to manually terminate the WSL session. I finally settled on a tidy user-scoped bridge. It gives WSL access to the Windows agent and still lets WSL power off automatically.
Now that the Windows 10 May 2020 Update is finally available to everyone, without requiring to join the Windows Insiders program and install preview versions, it’s finally time to embrace WSL2.
WSL2 is the second iteration of the Windows Subsystem for Linux which finally allows running linux virtualized inside Windows. This new version brings real virtualization using a real linux kernel, but, compared to a traditional virtual machine, it runs on a lightweight hypervisor getting close to bare-metal performance.
This will also be used by Docker under the hood, boosting the start-up time and general performance of our containers. Sweet! Furthermore, with WSL2, VPN connections automatically propagate to linux correctly, which is great news when working from home.
So, let’s stop talking and get to update our Ubuntu 18.04 WSL environment to Ubuntu 20.04 running on WSL2.
