Microsoft Windows 10 will get a full built-in Linux Kernel for WSL 2

May 7, 2019

Yes, you heard me right.

Microsoft is taking another step forward to show its love for
Linux and open source community by shipping a full Linux kernel in
Windows 10 this summer.

No, that doesn’t mean Microsoft is making its Windows 10 a Linux
distro, but the company will begin to ship an in-house custom built
Linux kernel later this year starting with the Windows 10 Insider
builds.

Microsoft announced the move in a blog post while
unveiling Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2.0 (or WSL
2) that will feature “dramatic file system performance
increases” and support more Linux apps like Docker.

So, to support this entirely new architecture for the WSL 2,
Windows 10 will have its own Linux kernel.

Although this is not the first time Microsoft has shipped a
Linux kernel as the company has already shipped its own custom
Linux kernel on
Azure Sphere last year, this is the first time a Linux
kernel is shipped with Windows.
^[2]

Unlike Windows Subsystem
for Linux version 1.0 (WSL 1) which used a Linux-compatible
kernel, the first WSL 2 release will be based on the latest
long-term stable Linux release, i.e., version 4.19 of Linux at
Kernel.org.

By making the switch to using the Linux kernel itself, Microsoft
is getting all of Linux’s features like Docker containers for free
and promising “noticeably faster” performance, with faster boot up
and lesser use of memory.

“Initial tests that we’ve run have WSL 2 running up to 20x faster
compared to WSL 1 when unpacking a zipped tarball, and around 2-5x
faster when using git clone, npm install and cmake on various
projects,” Microsoft writes in the announcement ^[4]
blog.

You can see a preview of Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2.0 in
the given video.
While the source code for the Linux kernel will come from
Kernel.org, Microsoft says the company will include tits custom
kernel in Windows Update to deliver security updates and
improvements to Windows 10.

Moreover, Microsoft will host its custom WSL2 kernel on Github
and will be making it fully open source, so that developers and
researchers can contribute to the WSL2 kernel. The company will
also provide build instructions so that developers can create their
own customized kernels.

Microsoft today unveils “Windows Terminal” —
a new, powerful, and productive terminal application for
command-line lovers.https://t.co/2ySiZSBI4p
pic.twitter.com/MevQFEkRQ0 ^[5]^[6]

— The Hacker News (@TheHackersNews) May 6,
2019 ^[7]

WSL 2 will be rolling out to Windows 10 Insider builds by the
end of June 2019.

Besides the Linux kernel, Microsoft also announced ^[8]
the company’s plan to launch a new Windows Terminal app that will
make WSL 2 work even better. The source code of Windows Terminal is
already available on GitHub ^[9].

^[1]^[3]

References

^{^}
blog post
(devblogs.microsoft.com)
^{^}
Linux kernel on Azure Sphere
(thehackernews.com)
^{^}
Windows Subsystem for Linux version
1.0 (thehackernews.com)
^{^}
announcement
(devblogs.microsoft.com)
^{^}
https://t.co/2ySiZSBI4p
(t.co)
^{^}
pic.twitter.com/MevQFEkRQ0
(t.co)
^{^}
May 6, 2019
(twitter.com)
^{^}
announced
(devblogs.microsoft.com)
^{^}
GitHub
(github.com)

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Microsoft Windows 10 will get a full built-in Linux Kernel for WSL 2

References

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