Introduction

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a compatibility layer of Windows that allows linux distributions to run as a subsystem on Windows.

WSL can be used for various purposes, such as:

  • Docker
  • Development environment
  • UNIX tools

Configuration

Next to the normal settings of the distribution used for WSL, there are also some settings for the WSL instance itself. Documentation from Microsoft

Resources

If not enough or too many resources are used in WSL. It is possible to change the resources available for WSL.

For this, the file .wslconfig can be created in Windows. This file should be located in the user’s home directory.

%UserProfile%\.wslconfig

  [wsl2]
memory=8GB # Available RAM for WSL
processors=4 # Number of processors for WSL

WSL Configuration

Next to this file in the Windows system there is another configuration file in WSL. This file can be found under /etc/wsl.conf.

/etc/wsl.conf

  [network]
generateResolvConf = false # Don't generate the resolv.conf file
generateHosts = false # Don't generate the hosts file

[interop]
appendWindowsPath = false # Don't append Windows paths to WSL
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Last updated 12 Feb 2025, 07:57 +0100 . history