Windows Subsystem for Linux, the best way to learn Linux on Windows

Want to learn Linux but don't know how/where to start? WSL may be a good option.

In 2018, Microsoft released the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). WSL lets developers run the GNU/Linux shell on a Windows 10 PC, a very convenient way to access the beloved tools, utilities and services Linux offers without the overhead of a VM.

WSL is also the best way to learn Linux on Windows!

About WSL

Currently WSL supports Ubuntu, Debian, Suse and Kali distributions and can:

• run bash shell scripts 
• run GNU/Linux command-line applications including: vim, emacs, tmux
• run programming languages like JavaScript, Node.js, Ruby, Python, Golang, Rust, C/C++, C# & F#, etc.
• run background services like ssh shells, MySQL, Apache, lighttpd;
  
• install additional software using own GNU/Linux distribution package manager.
• invoke Windows applications.
• access your Windows filesystem

Installing WSL on Windows 10

Installing WSL is covered by Microsoft on this article and is as easy is two steps.

Step 1 - Run a Powershell Command

On your Windows PC, you will need to run this PowerShell script as Administrator (shift + right-click):

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows -Subsystem-Linux

After the installation ends, restart your PC.

Step 2 - Install WSL from the Windows Store

After the reboot, WSL can be installed through the Windows Store. To open the Windows Store on your Windows 10, click:

Start -> Type Store -> Click on the Windows Store:

Then type "Linux" on the search box and you should get something similar results to this:

Click on the icon, accept the terms and Windows will download and install WSL for you.

Running WSL

After installation started, you will be prompted to enter your username and password. After done, you'll get a cool Linux terminal to start playing with. You can even have multiple Distros installed on your Windows 10 machine. On mine, I installed Debian and Ubuntu.

Using the Terminal

Okay, so now that we have access to our Linux shell, what to do next? Let's go through these use cases:

• Accessing my Windows files
• Access internet resources
• I install software

Accessing Windows Files

WSL mounts your Windows files on the /mnt/c mount point. To verify on yours type mount on the command prompt and look for C: on it. Your windows files should be there.

In case you don't know Linux, listing files is done with   ls  . This is the content of my C drive as as seen from WSL:

Accessing the Internet

Your WSL instance should have access to the internet. Testing the internet is as simple as doing a ping to Google:

You can also verify your network info with ifconfig:

 

Installing Software

Installing software on Ubuntu/Debian is done by the apt command. For example, this is how we search packages:

To install packages, use apt-get install. For example, to install Ruby on the Ubuntu WSL, run the command below:

sudo apt-get install ruby-full

Using git

We can leverage apt and install git with:

sudo apt-get install git
... # apt installs git
git --help # to get help

And, I'd recommend learn to use it on the terminal. Atlassian has an excellent tutorial to learn git.

Getting Help

Need help? The man tool is there to help you. For example, we could run the commands below to get help on git for example:

man git

Additional tip: try the new Windows Terminal

And, if you want to invest more time on your WSL, I'd suggest that you install the new Windows Terminal. Download the last release from GitHub and install it on your box. It's very customizeable and contains shells for WSL, PowerShell, Azure CLI and the traditional Windows terminal.

What's next?

Now that you know how to locate your files, have access to the internet and installed some software, I'd recommend that you:

• learn the basic GNU tools (cp, rm, ls, more, less, head, top, mount, etc);
• try to edit files with Vim or Nano;
• install software with apt (for Debian-based systems) and dnf (for RH/CentOS/Fedora);
• try some development (Python, Ruby, Go, Rust or C with gcc);
• try to install and run services such as MariaDB, nginx or Node.js;
• test out cool terminal tools like w3m, Ranger file manager, Reddit, DuckDuckGo on the terminal;

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have the WSL installed on your machine and now you have a Linux terminal to starting playing with. Now what? The first thing I'd recommend is to get comfortable with basic system commands, understand the filesystem, learn to add/remove software and run administrative tasks on the terminal. WSL is perfect for users who want to learn Linux and to those who spent a lot of time on Windows but need access to a Linux terminal.

If you want to know more about my setup, here's why I use Fedora Linux with the fantastic i3 window manager on the desktop and CentOS on servers. Happy hacking!

References

• WSL - FAQ
• WSL - Installing
• WSL - Documentation
• WSL - Command Line Reference
• An A-Z of Linux – 40 Essential Commands You Should Know
• Linux Command Line tips that every Linux user should know
• Must-Know Linux Commands For New Users

See Also

• My journey to 1 million articles read
• Why use Linux
• Why I use Fedora Linux
• How I fell in love with i3
• How to create a Ubuntu Desktop on Azure
• Why developers love Linux
• What is a Linux distribution
• Learn Vim
• Why use CentOS
• How to build and run ASP.NET Core apps on Linux
• How to install and run Docker on Linux
• How to create a CentOS Stream VM on Hyper-V
• How to create a CentOS VM on Azure

It's time to Firefox again

Understand why now is the best time to start using Firefox again

On a previous post, I listed ways we are being tracked without consent by search engines, browsers, mobile apps, social networks, TVs, games, devices, etc. Hopefully by now, you understand why we all should be concerned with security, ethics and privacy.

But before we discuss privacy and why we should reconsider Firefox, I thought it would be interesting to do a quick recap on web browsers, this omnipresent tool in our lives.

Market Share

Today, Firefox has about 13% market share. A huge decrease if we consider that it originates from Netscape, which had close to 80% of the market two decades ago.

Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268254/market-share-of-internet-browsers-worldwide-since-2009/

To understand how that happen, let's take a quick look at the browser market history

The First Browser War

Back in 1995, Netscape sailed in calm waters until a Internet Explorer 1.0 was released by Microsoft. That was the beginning of what's called the first browser wars.

According to Wikipedia:

• By mid-1995, Netscape Navigator was the most widely used web browser and Microsoft had licensed Mosaic to create Internet Explorer 1.0 which it had released as part of the Microsoft Windows 95 Plus! Pack in August.
• Internet Explorer 2.0 was released as a free download three months later. Unlike Netscape Navigator it was available to all Windows users for free, even commercial companies.
• Internet Explorer 4 changed the tides of the browser wars. It was integrated into Microsoft Windows, which gave it a large installation base.

Quickly, the Windows-IE integration brought excellent results to Redmond. Now, Microsoft had two advantages in the browser market:

• Resources - Microsoft had way more financial resources than the relatively small company that essentially had a single product (Netscape Navigator)
• IE was bundled with Windows - since Windows had over 90% share of the desktop operating system market, IE quickly gained adoption.

Fast dominance, Slow innovation

But the market share dominance certainly was not good for consumers. A period of slow innovation started:

Microsoft was able to dominate the market share easily as customers had it as the default browser. This also brought an end to the rapid innovation in web browsers; until 2006 there was only one new version of Internet Explorer since version 6.0 had been released in 2001.

The market remained stalled for a few years until a new contender entered the market: Google Chrome.

The Second Browser War

The Chrome browser was released on December 11, 2008, using the same WebKit rendering engine as Safari and a faster JavaScript engine called V8. Google replicated Microsoft's aggressive strategy and embedded Chrome in Android. Quickly we saw Chrome surpassing Firefox and IE to reach the top spot:

Chrome Advances

Let's be honest: Chrome indeed brought us many advances. To name some: simple bookmarks and settings synchronization, web standards support, malware blocking, plugins, incognito mode, speed, stability, desktop apps, its web store, extensions, themes, automatic web page translation, release channels, frequent release cycles, etc. That's a lot!

But remember, they weren't the first to create most of these features. Firefox (and Opera) had most of those features way before them:

• themes;
• a web store;
• extension support;
• plugin support;
• incognito mode;
• web standards support;
• developer tools;
• do not track;
• automatic updates;

The Strategy

The history repeated itself: a company with OS dominance embed  their browser and foster it as the best for you on all its channels. Example, if you go to Google.com today using Firefox you will see:

 

Source: google.com (using Firefox)

Because Chrome is embedded in Android (the most popular mobile OS), has tight integration into other Google services and to ads like the above, people keep ditching alternatives and just using Chrome.

The problem

As always, problems begin when you dominate the market share. Impartial practices, disrespect to open standards, privacy concerns and all sorts of other issues happen. Common complaints in the past are now back with Chrome:

• Chrome is a memory hog;
• Chrome drains my battery;
• Chrome does not respect my privacy;
• Chrome tracks me;
• Mobile data sharing is 'out of control'

So how can we approach this problem?

The solution

The solution is a more open Web, not a web governed by one or two companies but internet for people, not for profit. It has to include open standards, open formats, strong security and privacy that protect the users.

It's internet for the people, not for profit. 

Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/

Unfortunately, the web today has problems. Security, ethics and privacy are not being respected and we should work together to improve it. And it will start with us, the users. It should start with our search engines and with our browser.

Firefox

That's why my browser of choice is Firefox. Because I want my privacy respected, because I want a more open web, because I support open-source software, because it has excellent development support and it's super fast!

Enhanced Tracking Protection

To get better, Mozilla has been working on the Enhance Tracking Protection feature. Starting on Firefox 63, users will be able to block all third-party cookies so they are not tracked while browsing the web.

Fast, Lightweight and Private

Bonus: Firefox Focus

I've used many browsers on different mobile devices and honestly, never have been completely satisfied. Lately, I've been using Firefox Focus and if you want speed, privacy in a lightweight browser, you got it there:

Source: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/focus/

Conclusion

We are being tracked without consent by search engines, browsers, mobile apps, social networks, TVs, games, devices, etc. Hopefully by now, you understand why we all should be concerned with security, ethics and privacy.

There are alternative search engines and browsers that respect your privacy. Why not try and spread the word?

References

• Mobile data sharing is 'out of control'
• Firefox - Enhance Tracking Protection
• DuckDuckGo - A search engine that does not track you
• Firefox Focus

See Also

• My journey to 1 million articles read
• Security and development: how much is being done?
• Security is only as strong as the weakest link
• The Laws of security
• Privacy and Ethics
• Security Boundaries
• Why use Fedora Linux
• 5 tools for Azure Development on Linux 
• How to create a Ubuntu Desktop on Azure 
• Windows Subsystem for Linux, the best way to learn Linux on Windows