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Installing the Windows Subsystem for Linux

The Ojos Project will primarily be working with Unix-like operating systems. That is, Linux or macOS. We build scripts and other software that will primarily be compatible with these two systems.

This is mostly because the Raspberry Pi OS is Linux-based, but it's also because I really don't like Windows.

If you're working on the Ojos Project and prefer to use Windows, though, you can still help!

Enabling the Feature​

If you get an error saying that the wsl command is not available, please try:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

Please refer to the WSL documentation.

Install Process​

First, we need to install the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Per Microsoft's about page, the WSL is...

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature of Windows that allows you to run a Linux environment on your Windows machine, without the need for a separate virtual machine or dual booting. WSL is designed to provide a seamless and productive experience for developers who want to use both Windows and Linux at the same time.

The important part for us is being able to use Bash commands on the terminal. Anyways, enough of that. Let's actually install this thing.

Please use PowerShell as an admin.

wsl --install -d Debian

That simple command will go through the install process for WSL, specifically for the Debian version. It doesn't matter which one you choose as long as it is Debian-based. I chose Debian because it is considered to be the most stable Linux operating system.

tip

Don't want to use Debian? There's other distributions available! To see what's available, run wsl --list --online in PowerShell.

Please note that all documentation is written with Debian in mind. If something goes wrong, we may not be able to help you.

Please reboot your system!

After the Reboot​

After the reboot, you will be prompted to choose a username and password. This can be the same as your Windows credentials, it really doesn't matter.

Congrats, we now have Linux on Windows! ✨

Please do the following to continue the setup:

# installing git
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install git

# make a new folder for Git repos
mkdir git
cd git

# clone the repo, cd into the linux-setup folder
git clone https://github.com/ojosproject/scripts.git
cd scripts/linux-setup

# run the setup script
bash linux-setup.sh

Please follow the instructions provided by the script.