If you’re a developer on Windows, you’ve probably hit this wall: the tools you want to use — grep, awk, ssh, package managers, shell scripts — are all Linux-native. Getting them to work on Windows ranges from painful to impossible.

WSL is Microsoft’s solution to this, and it’s genuinely good.

What is WSL?

WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is an optional Windows 10 feature that lets you run Linux programs directly on Windows — no virtual machine, no dual boot, no restarting your machine every time you want to switch contexts.

It’s a collaboration between Microsoft and Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu). Under the hood, it’s a compatibility layer that translates Linux system calls into Windows ones. In practice, it just feels like having a Linux terminal.

Why it matters

The developer workflow on Linux is smoother for backend work. You get:

  • Real bash or zsh shell
  • apt package manager — install anything with one command
  • GNU tools: grep, awk, sed, find, curl, wget
  • Direct access to the Linux file system alongside your Windows files
  • No reboots when switching between Linux tasks and Windows apps

The alternative before WSL was running a full virtual machine (VirtualBox, VMware) which is slower, uses more RAM, and requires managing a separate OS installation. WSL eliminates all of that.

Requirements

Windows 10 (64-bit), build 1607 or later. Most machines running Windows 10 today qualify.

Getting started

# In PowerShell (as Administrator)
wsl --install

That’s it. It installs Ubuntu by default. Restart, set a username and password, and you have a Linux terminal.

If you want a specific distribution:

wsl --list --online        # see available distros
wsl --install -d Debian    # install a specific one

A few things to know

The current WSL version (WSL 2) has excellent support for command-line tools. GUI apps have limited support — this is improving, but if you need a full graphical Linux desktop, you’d still want a VM.

Your Windows files are accessible from WSL at /mnt/c/ and your WSL files are accessible from Windows Explorer. You can run code . inside WSL and VS Code opens the folder with full WSL integration.

Should you use it?

If you’re on Windows and doing any kind of backend, DevOps, or systems work — yes. It’s the fastest way to get a proper development environment without leaving Windows entirely.

I wrote a note earlier about why Linux is better for programming — WSL gives you most of those benefits without the commitment of switching your OS.