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Cover image for peektea brews on WSL ๐Ÿ‘€๐Ÿต (and installs in one line)
Athreya aka Maneshwar
Athreya aka Maneshwar

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peektea brews on WSL ๐Ÿ‘€๐Ÿต (and installs in one line)

#webdev #programming #cli #productivity

Hello, I'm Maneshwar. I'm building git-lrc, a Micro AI code reviewer that runs on every commit. It is free and source-available on Github. Star git-lrc to help devs discover the project. Do give it a try and share your feedback.

Two things I kept putting off.

First: people on Windows asked if peektea runs on WSL. It does now.

Second: "brew it from source" is a terrible install story for a tool that's supposed to be minimal. That's fixed too.

peektea demo on WSL machine gh

Demo here in case above preview not showing up.

WSL support

WSL is Linux. peektea runs on Linux. So far, so good.

The problem is o the key that opens files.

On a normal Linux machine, pressing o on an image launches feh or eog. On WSL there are no Linux GUI apps.

The call fails silently or prints an error.

peektea now detects WSL at startup:

func IsWSL() bool {
    if os.Getenv("WSL_DISTRO_NAME") != "" {
        return true
    }
    data, err := os.ReadFile("/proc/version")
    return err == nil && strings.Contains(strings.ToLower(string(data)), "microsoft")
}
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When WSL is detected, file opens route through wslview (from wslu) if it's installed, otherwise fall back to explorer.exe:

func WSLOpener() string {
    if _, err := exec.LookPath("wslview"); err == nil {
        return "wslview"
    }
    if _, err := exec.LookPath("explorer.exe"); err == nil {
        return "explorer.exe"
    }
    if _, err := os.Stat("/mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe"); err == nil {
        return "/mnt/c/Windows/explorer.exe"
    }
    return ""
}
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There's one more wrinkle: Windows programs can't read Linux paths like /home/taco/file.png.

They need UNC paths like \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu\home\taco\file.png.

WSL ships wslpath for exactly this:

func WindowsPath(path string) string {
    out, err := exec.Command("wslpath", "-w", path).Output()
    if err != nil {
        return path
    }
    return strings.TrimSpace(string(out))
}
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When the configured opener ends in .exe, the path gets converted before the command runs.

wslview handles conversion itself so it doesn't need this, only raw explorer.exe does.

GitHub logo lovestaco / peektea

brewing a terminal file browser with Bubble Tea

cover

A minimal terminal file browser built with Bubble Tea.

Peek through your filesystem with arrow keys (or vim keys), then pour each file straight into the app you've configured for it.

Demo

A quick peek before you steep:

demo

Install

One-liner:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lovestaco/peektea/master/scripts/install.sh | sh
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Download a binary (no Go required) โ€” grab the latest release for your platform from the releases page:


























Platform File
Linux x86-64 peektea_linux_amd64.tar.gz
Linux arm64 peektealinux_arm64.tar.gz
macOS x86-64 peekteadarwin_amd64.tar.gz
macOS Apple Silicon peektea_darwin_arm64.tar.gz

Extract and put the peektea binary anywhere on your $PATH.

Install with Go:

go install github.com/lovestaco/peektea@latest
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Build from source:

git clone https://github.com/lovestaco/peektea
cd peektea
make install
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make install puts the binary in ~/go/bin and figures out $PATH for you:

  1. Already reachable โ€” done, nothing to do.
  2. ~/.local/bin is on your PATH โ€” symlinks the binary there, works immediately in the current shell.
  3. Neither โ€” appends ~/go/bin to your .bashrcโ€ฆ
View on GitHub

peektea init on WSL

peektea init on a normal Linux machine asks you to pick a text editor, file manager, image viewer, and PDF viewer from what's installed.

On WSL there usually aren't any Linux GUI apps. Asking you to pick between zero options isn't a great experience.

So on WSL, init skips those categories and sets the Windows opener as the fallback instead of xdg-open.

You still get the full text editor setup (vim, nvim, nano those work fine in WSL), and the Windows side handles everything visual.

peektea init on WSL

Demo here in case the above preview is not showing up.

While at it, peektea init got smarter in general.

If you decline the "already exists, overwrite?" prompt, it used to just exit.

Now it keeps your config and continues to the chafa check, so you can re-run peektea init any time just to install extras without nuking your setup.

And if chafa isn't installed, it doesn't just print the install command anymore.

It offers to run it:

โ”€โ”€ Image previews
   chafa not found โ€” it renders images right in the terminal (the `p` preview).
   Install it now? (sudo apt install -y chafa) [Y/n]:
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It detects your package manager (apt, dnf, pacman, zypper, apk, brew) and runs the right command. Bare enter means yes.

Installation

The other thing that needed fixing: the only install method was cloning the repo and running make install.

That requires Go, git, and knowing where ~/go/bin is.

Too much friction for a tool that's supposed to just work.

peektea now ships pre-built binaries for Linux and macOS (x86-64 and arm64) on every release.

One-liner:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lovestaco/peektea/master/scripts/install.sh | sh
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The script detects your OS and architecture, pulls the right binary from the latest release, and installs it to ~/.local/bin or /usr/local/bin whichever is already on your PATH.

With Go:

go install github.com/lovestaco/peektea@latest
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peektea version now works correctly regardless of how you installed it.

When installed via go install, the binary reads its own module version from debug.ReadBuildInfo().

When built with make install, the version comes from git describe via ldflags.

Either way:

peektea version
# peektea v0.2.1 (linux/amd64)
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GitHub logo HexmosTech / git-lrc

Free, Micro AI Code Reviews That Run on Commit



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