Debian & Kali Linux Are Now On Windows Subsystem for Linux

Written by Michael Larabel in Microsoft on 6 March 2018 at 03:59 PM EST. 17 Comments
MICROSOFT
Microsoft has announced this week the latest Linux distributions now available via the Windows 10 Store for running on Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Kali Linux, the distribution popular with security testers/researchers, was made available yesterday on the Windows Store for WSL. Details via the MSDN blog.

Joining Kali, Ubuntu, SUSE, and openSUSE on Windows WSL now is also Debian Linux. Microsoft's Tara Raj announced that Debian GNU/Linux is also now available on this platform for running Linux binaries on newer revisions of Windows 10.

Our most recent Linux vs. WSL benchmarks remain quite promising for getting decent performance out of this subsystem if being stuck to Windows 10 but the big caveat remains with much slower I/O performance. But Microsoft is said to be working on improvements in this area... I will try out Kali and Debian soon on Windows Subsystem for Linux with some fresh benchmarks, especially now with a new Phoronix Test Suite Windows port that's been in the works.
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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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