Run Custom Linux Distro on WSL e.g arch Linux - CLI though

jimbo45 · Dec 1, 2021

Hi folks
this is now easily do-able but you need a Linux VM / Host system to initiate the process.
What you basically have to do is to create a .TAR image of the distro you want and then import it into the wsl.

so

1) on Linux VM / Host install docker -- e.g sudo pacman -S docker
2) get the distro docker image e.g for archLinux : docker pull archlinux
3) start a container - this will be the base volume for the WSL2 system : docker run -it --name archlinux-wsl archlinux
4) from the running container set up base user stuff you want e.g in the case of arch Linux get docker image up to date
pacman -Syu
and add user on the docker image to the sudoers group.
pacman -Sy sudo vi
export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi
visudo
# in the editor, uncomment the line "%wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL"
useradd -G wheel,users -m username (User needs to be in the sudoers group if you don't want to run as root)
passwd 123456789f
# enter the password for the container user
pwconv
chmod 0744 /etc/shadow /etc/gshadow (optional only do it if you get "access denied")
exit

now we make the tar file :
5) docker export --output archlinux-image-files.tar archlinux-wsl
6) on the WINDOWS host run :wsl --import archlinux (a directory on your computer that will store the distribution files) .\archlinux-image-files.tar
7) wsl -d archlinux to start archlinux in wsl

and have fun -- note this is only the CLI version -- might be possible to install GNOME,MATE,KDE or whatever - will try that later.

Cheers
jimbo

pparks1 · Dec 1, 2021

Funny you brought this up, I did the same thing today, but used CentOS instead as my distro of choice. I love WSL2, but I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu. As a long term RedHat engineer, I prefer RHEL or CentOS as my distribution of choice.

Here is how i accomplished it. In my case, I have Windows 10 on my machine, and I have WSL2 enabled and I have docker desktop installed. These are tools that I use all of the time. I went to docker desktop, checked settings and enabled integration with WSL2, and made sure that my default Ubuntu could use that integration.

Great, so now I can launch my WSL2 based Ubuntu, and I can run docker commands within that Ubuntu instance (without having to actually install docker within that Linux VM...pretty cool, eh?)

Steps: (from within your WSL2 Ubuntu)
docker run -t centos bash ls / (this pulls down CentOS 8 from CentOS and leaves me with a previously running container)

docker ps -a (grab the container ID of the centOS image from the output

docker export containerID# >/mnt/c/temp/centos.tar (put in your containerID# from previous step, this will export CentOS to a .tar file

mkdir C:\wslstore (just creating a place on my C drive to store my WSL image...you can name this whatever you like)

mkdir C:\wslstore\CentOS (just creating a place in C:\wslstore to keep my CentOS image...you can name this whatever you like)

Now, from windows terminal on windows

wsl --import CentOS C:\wslstore\CentOS C:\temp\centos.tar (this will unpack the tar file and place it in C:\wslstore\CentOS and will create a WSL2 image named CentOS)

wsl -d CentOS (this will start up your CentOS WSL image........Enjoy)

jimbo45 · Dec 2, 2021

pparks1 said:
Funny you brought this up, I did the same thing today, but used CentOS instead as my distro of choice. I love WSL2, but I'm not a huge fan of Ubuntu. As a long term RedHat engineer, I prefer RHEL or CentOS as my distribution of choice.

Here is how i accomplished it. In my case, I have Windows 10 on my machine, and I have WSL2 enabled and I have docker desktop installed. These are tools that I use all of the time. I went to docker desktop, checked settings and enabled integration with WSL2, and made sure that my default Ubuntu could use that integration.

Great, so now I can launch my WSL2 based Ubuntu, and I can run docker commands within that Ubuntu instance (without having to actually install docker within that Linux VM...pretty cool, eh?)

Steps: (from within your WSL2 Ubuntu)
docker run -t centos bash ls / (this pulls down CentOS 8 from CentOS and leaves me with a previously running container)

docker ps -a (grab the container ID of the centOS image from the output

docker export containerID# >/mnt/c/temp/centos.tar (put in your containerID# from previous step, this will export CentOS to a .tar file

mkdir C:\wslstore (just creating a place on my C drive to store my WSL image...you can name this whatever you like)

mkdir C:\wslstore\CentOS (just creating a place in C:\wslstore to keep my CentOS image...you can name this whatever you like)

Now, from windows terminal on windows

wsl --import CentOS C:\wslstore\CentOS C:\temp\centos.tar (this will unpack the tar file and place it in C:\wslstore\CentOS and will create a WSL2 image named CentOS)

wsl -d CentOS (this will start up your CentOS WSL image........Enjoy)

Hi there
@pparks1

great stuff as well !!

I used to like CENTOS as a lean and mean reliable server -- my issue with CENTOS was that the kernel was always a bit behind and I've really enjoyed fiddling around with Arch Linux as it seems a decent reliable rolling release --haven't had any problems with it so far with updates etc etc.

Now "for the next trick" is to see if one can get some sort of "Workstation GUI" to run on the chosen distro. I can get some programs working but a full desktop would be interesting. I've plenty of RAM an the host machine , 2 ports for video out and some decent fast SSD's so not lacking resources.

I'm quite happy using the CLI -- my NAS servers all run in CLI mode, headless -- but this is a challenge.

Docker is great - thanks for leading me in that direction some time ago --ist time I've really got into it.

Cheers
jimbo