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Run Linux GUI apps on Windows 10

David J Eddy on October 23, 2018

A Little Background As much as I would like to ignore Windows in the tech world, it can not be marginalized. To many users with to many applicatio...

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Ahmed Şeref • Nov 2 '18 • Edited

This a really cool post. I think that WSL has limitations and GUI apps one one these.

Some apps need dbus like (gnome-terminal).

You should install and start the service.

sudo apt-get install dbus-x11
sudo service dbus start

see: github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/2016

David J Eddy • Nov 2 '18

This is very true. WSL does not (yet) have DBus support. Give ti time though, Windows will become more Linux like and Linux (maybe) will get a nice UI and New User Experience. At least, one can hope. :)

Ahmed Şeref • Nov 2 '18 • Edited

Successully run gnome-terminal. Trying to run visual studio code :)

Annnnd, mission completed.

# download vscode deb package.

sudo dpkg -i vscode-1.28.2.deb
sudo apt install 
sudo apt install --fix-broken libgconf-2-4 gconf2-common gconf-service gconf-service-backend libxss1 libdbus-glib-1-2 libasound2

# the hack is taken from: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/3451#issuecomment-217716116
sudo sed -i 's/BIG-REQUESTS/_IG-REQUESTS/' /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxcb.so.1

David J Eddy • Nov 2 '18

Nice! Are you able to run other DBus dependant applications with the same process?

Ahmed Şeref • Nov 2 '18

Yes! Started Firefox but I do not know if it is DBus dependent.

tux0r • Oct 24 '18

Ironically, with the PowerShell having become a mature application, there is close to no reason to install Linux applications on Windows anymore. Except if you're after applications which were not (sanely) ported to Windows, like plan9port (which is why I use it).

Ankit Tiwari • Oct 23 '18

I learned about it recently. It feels amazing running Linux GUI apps on Windows. Thanks for sharing this with everyone.

David J Eddy • Oct 23 '18

Right! Not even fathomable ten years ago.

TechFahim • Aug 7 '20

really its helpfull for us Kali Linux on Windows in 5min WSL 2 GUI

RupankarGhosh • Oct 24 '18

In my opinion Windows 10 is getting better with WSL . Now it's out of beta and many network tools in WSL is working fine now. But still I am having some socket problems while on Kali Linux. The only thing I would like to see from windows in this strategy is to create a seperate folder in C:\ drive for its Linux subsystem (which atleast make any sense). 👨🏻‍💻💜🐧

TechFahim • Aug 7 '20

really its helpfull for us Kali Linux on Windows in 5min WSL 2 GUI

bhojpurisonglist • Dec 12 '21

yes you are right good content