Microsoft announced the integration of support for Linux environments based on the WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) in the recently released June cumulative update for Windows Server 2022. Initially, the WSL2 subsystem, which enables running Linux executables on Windows, was only available in Windows workstation versions.
To enable the execution of Linux executables in WSL2, instead of an emulator that translated Linux system calls to Windows system calls, a full Linux kernel environment is provided. The kernel offered for WSL is based on the Linux kernel release 5.10, which is extended with specific WSL patches that include optimizations to reduce kernel boot time, decrease memory consumption, return memory freed by Linux processes back to Windows, and leave the kernel with the minimal necessary set of drivers and subsystems.
The kernel runs in a Windows environment using a virtual machine, which is already utilized in Azure. The WSL environment operates in a separate disk image (VHD) with an ext4 file system and a virtual network adapter. User-space components are installed separately and are based on builds from various distributions. For instance, the Microsoft Store offers builds of Ubuntu, Debian GNU/Linux, Kali Linux, Fedora, Alpine, SUSE, and openSUSE for installation in WSL.
Additionally, it is worth noting the corrective release of the Linux distribution CBL-Mariner 2.0.20220617 (Common Base Linux Mariner), designed as a universal base platform for Linux environments used in cloud infrastructure, edge systems, and various Microsoft services. The project aims to unify the Linux solutions employed in Microsoft and simplify the maintenance of various Linux systems in an up-to-date state. The project's developments are distributed under the MIT license.
Source: opennet.ru
