WSL2 Adding Support For Mounting Physical Disks, EXT4 Access And More From Windows

[Syfer]

For now it seems to corrupt ext4: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5895
Progress in this are is quite important, I'd love to be able to use BTRFS for data storage instead of NTFS

[dragon321]

It is because of X11's client / server architecture that it works in WSL2. Consider that it is due to the weakness of Wayland's scope that Wayland compositors do not work across VM boundaries.

Every single compositor will also have to find their own unique and fragmented solution to this problem. It is quite possible that the compositor you use will lack this functionality for a while compared to others.

Doesn't Microsoft write Wayland compositor for GUI apps in WSL2? Why Wayland compositor wouldn't work in VM?

[c117152]

I used to do this with virtualbox and a samba share back when I dual booted along with a headless transmission daemon that picked up the seeding where I left it when switching between OSs. The RAM overhead was barely 50mb and it never gave me any stability issues.

Ended up with a KVM switch soon enough.

[Danny3]

If you're concerned, you could flip the architecture and run Linux on the outside and Windows in a VM. That's how I prefer to do it.

Thanks, but I already do that and also I'm not really concerned because the dual-boot version of Windows that I use is 7 with disabled updates and Deep Freeze so Microsoft doesn't change it into crapware with data collection abilities.
The VM version is good, but sometimes, when I need the best performance or compatibility I need to use Windows.
Anyway, I have a common NTFS partition that can be accessed from both so I don't need Windows to be able to access the Linux partition directly.

[dkasak]

Can I run GNOME in WSL? What about Snaps and Flatpaks?

Not sure about Gnome ( others have commented ). I know that Flatpak apps work, as I've tested this for my app which I distribute via Flatpak. There are some usability issues ( maximize does nothing ), but otherwise, no obvious issues.

[dragorth]

It is because of X11's client / server architecture that it works in WSL2. Consider that it is due to the weakness of Wayland's scope that Wayland compositors do not work across VM boundaries.

Every single compositor will also have to find their own unique and fragmented solution to this problem. It is quite possible that the compositor you use will lack this functionality for a while compared to others.

MS has said their solution ill use a custom Wayland based protocol they intend to donate back to Wayland, so not X based at all.

[modzilla]

Can I run GNOME in WSL? What about Snaps and Flatpaks?

You should be able to when you use systemd init. Otherwise it definately doesn't.

https://github.com/arkane-systems/genie

Same here. Users can already have the same level of integration that WSL 2 promises in the future (GUI apps) at the opposite end of the spectrum. I've had a set-up like this for years now but find myself using it less and less as native Linux apps and Wine fit the bill.

Nice ^^, how do you do that? With xfreerdp?

[mcoffin]

Icydock makes drive carries that you could use to slide out and protect the linux drive.

My drive bays are already hot-swappable slide-ins, but that's just a major PITA. I was mostly being facetious; I won't really change filesystems. I'm just upset at losing the peace of mind. Any data that I don't want read by windows is already in LUKS2 encrypted partitions anyways. I just like knowing that windows won't write something random.