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Currently, you can only use WSL1 in Windows. WSL1 is emulation and has way too few features compared to a proper virtual machine. WSL2 currently is available on

by simosx 7y ago

Currently, you can only use WSL1 in Windows. WSL1 is emulation and has way too few features compared to a proper virtual machine. WSL2 currently is available only through the Windows Insider Program, which is something that you will NOT setup on a work machine. WSL2 is still work in progress. Currently it misses many features and the provided Linux kernel does not include many kernel modules (several for networking are missing). For example, WSL2 currently does not support bridge networking.

pletnes 7y ago
In my experience, WSL1 is also very, very slow and cannot run all programs. A while ago, no haskell programs would run, for instance. Not sure about the current status though. Another limitation in WSL1 is that it cannot run docker. And so on. It still might be an OK way to obtain *nix based software, and can «see» your windows directory tree without any mounting/configuration. And no VM is needed.
- whycombagator 7y ago
  > In my experience, WSL1 is also very, very slow I've commented this in the past, but WSL1 is much faster than WSL2 when interoping with the Windows file system[0] [0]https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197