EECS 280 Tutorials

Windows Command line tools (WSL)

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) runs an Ubuntu Linux guest virtual machine on your Windows host machine.

When you see $ in this tutorial, you should type into your shell the command that comes after the $.

Upgrade Windows

We recommend Windows 11. Windows 10 version 2004 build 19041 and higher will also work. Here’s how to check your Windows version.

Free Windows upgrades are available for UM students via OnTheHub. If you have an older Windows machine and are not able to upgrade, please reach out to course instructors for assistance.

Install WSL

Start PowerShell and run it as administrator. Search for PowerShell in the start menu, then right-click and select “Run as administrator”. (Note: these instructions are based on the instructions from Microsoft.)

Check if WSL was already installed. If you see this, WSL is already installed.

C:\WINDOWS\system32> wsl -l -v
  NAME      STATE       VERSION
* Ubuntu    Stopped     2

If you see the WSL help text, WSL is not installed.

C:\WINDOWS\system32> wsl -l -v
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Usage: wsl.exe [Argument]
...

Install WSL.

C:\WINDOWS\system32> wsl --install

Restart your computer.

Start PowerShell as administrator, and check that the VERSION is 2.

C:\WINDOWS\system32> wsl -l -v
  NAME      STATE       VERSION
* Ubuntu    Stopped     2

If the VERSION is 1, you must upgrade to WSL 2.

Open terminal

Start an Ubuntu Bash shell.

First time: create account

The first time you open Ubuntu, you will be prompted to create a Linux username and password. Follow the prompts to create one.

• Choose a username that is all lowercase characters (could be your uniqname).
• While typing your password, the characters are not shown. This is fine.
• You can press Enter to skip fields other than username and password (e.g. “room number”).

Double check that your user has been created.

$ whoami
awdeorio  # this should NOT say root

$ whoami
root  # SOMEthiNG IS WRONG

PS C:\Users\awdeorio> wsl --unregister Ubuntu
Unregistering.
The operation completed successfully.

PS C:\Users\awdeorio> wsl --install -d Ubuntu
Ubuntu is already installed.
Launching Ubuntu...
Installing, this may take a few minutes...
Please create a default UNIX user account. The username does not need to match your Windows username.
For more information visit: https://aka.ms/wslusers
Enter a new UNIX username:

Install CLI tools

From an Ubuntu terminal, use the apt package manager to install a few command line programs. Linux users will run this same command.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install g++ make rsync wget git ssh gdb python3 tree

Use CLI tools

Now would be a great time to take a look at our CLI Tutorial.

Pro-tips

Accessing Linux files from Windows

To access Linux files from the Windows File Explorer, click the Linux icon. You may need to scroll down.

Navigate to your home directory: Linux > Ubuntu > home > awdeorio. Your username will be different.

Pro-tip: Right click your Linux home directory and choose “Pin to Quick access”.

It should now show up under “Quick access” in the left sidebar.

To open the File Explorer in any directory at the WSL (Ubuntu) Terminal:

$ explorer.exe .

Accessing Windows files from Linux

To access Windows files from Linux, navigate to /mnt/c/.

For example, here’s how to access your Windows Desktop. Your username will be different.

$ cd /mnt/c/Users
$ ls
'All Users'  'Default User'   defaultuser0   awdeorio   Default   Public   defaultuser100000   desktop.ini
$ cd awdeorio
$ ls
... Desktop  Downloads ...
$ cd Desktop

CLI open file

Opens a file or directory with the default application, like a double click. See the wslview command in the CLI tutorial.

Copy paste

Copy: ctrl + shift + c

Paste: ctrl + shift + v

If Copy/Paste doesn’t work, read on to enable it.

Enable copy paste

These instructions show how to enable WSL Copy/Paste on Windows 11 H2 or newer.

Right click on the window pane header of your Ubuntu WSL terminal. Click on the Settings option in the drop down menu.

Click on the Actions tab on the left side of the settings window.

Confirm that the “Copy text” and “Paste text” bindings exist. You may need to scroll down. Add them if needed using the “Add new” button.

• Copy text: ctrl + shift + c
• Paste text: ctrl + shift + v

Enable copy paste on older Windows

These instructions show how to enable WSL Copy/Paste on version of Windows older than 11 H2.

Click on the properties option in the dropdown.

Enable “Use Ctrl+Shift+C/V Copy/Paste” option in the Console “Options” properties page

Pitfalls

Spaces in paths

Avoid paths that contain spaces. Spaces causes problems with some command line tools.

Project folder in Windows home directory

Linux (Ubuntu) has a separate home directory. Storing code in your Windows home directory can cause slowdowns because WSL uses a network file share to communicate the files between Windows and Linux.

Here’s how to access your Linux files from Windows.

Root user

Avoid doing everyday coding as the root user in WSL. Some programs don’t work correctly when run as root. When you first installed Ubuntu, you should have been prompted to create a Linux username and password.

$ whoami
root

$ whoami
awdeorio

Acknowledgments

Original document written by Andrew DeOrio awdeorio@umich.edu.

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License. You’re free to copy and share this document, but not to sell it. You may not share source code provided with this document.