New Linux installations, installed using the wsl -install command, will be set to WSL 2 by default. Learn more in the guide to Basic commands for WSL. To run a specific wsl distribution from within PowerShell or Windows Command Prompt without changing your default distribution, use the command: wsl -d, replacing with the name of the distribution you want to use. Now running wsl npm init from Powershell will run the npm init command in Debian. For example, from PowerShell/CMD, enter: wsl -s Debian to set the default distribution to Debian. To set the default Linux distribution used with the wsl command, enter: wsl -s or wsl -setdefault, replacing with the name of the Linux distribution you would like to use. To set the default version to WSL 1 or WSL 2 when a new Linux distribution is installed, use the command: wsl -set-default-version, replacing with either 1 or 2. You can list your installed Linux distributions and check the version of WSL each is set to by entering the command: wsl -l -v in PowerShell or Windows Command Prompt. Check which version of WSL you are running We recommend following our Best practices for setting up a WSL development environment guide for a step-by-step walk-through of how to set up a user name and password for your installed Linux distribution(s), using basic WSL commands, installing and customizing Windows Terminal, set up for Git version control, code editing and debugging using the VS Code remote server, good practices for file storage, setting up a database, mounting an external drive, setting up GPU acceleration, and more. See the Best practices for setting up a WSL development environment guide to learn more. Once you have installed WSL, you will need to create a user account and password for your newly installed Linux distribution. You can also create your own custom Linux distribution to use with WSL.

Or in some cases, as with Arch Linux, you can install using an.

To install a Linux distribution that is not listed as available, you can import any Linux distribution using a TAR file. If you run into an issue during the install process, check the installation section of the troubleshooting guide. exe in the command: wsl.exe -install -d or to list available distributions: wsl.exe -l -o. If you want to install additional distributions from inside a Linux/Bash command line (rather than from PowerShell or Command Prompt), you must use.

Windows terminal install packages