Microsoft has released WSL 2.7.0 (Windows Subsystem for Linux), a toolkit that enables Linux applications to run on Windows. Version 2.7.0 marks the second significant release following the open-source release of the command-line utilities used in WSL, background processes for Linux environments, and virtual machine services under the MIT license. Previously, the WSL components related to the Linux kernel and the wslg graphics stack were open-sourced, while all associated tools were proprietary.
WSL provides a virtual machine with a full Linux kernel (based on the 6.6 branch) that can run Linux distributions. The kernel includes WSL-specific changes, such as optimizations to reduce startup time and memory consumption, the ability to return memory freed by Linux processes to Windows, and settings to exclude unnecessary drivers and subsystems. The system is installed in a separate disk image (VHD) with an ext4 file system and a virtual network adapter.
Among the changes:
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.6.114.
- Updated versions of the WSLg 1.0.71 graphics stack, .NET, Microsoft.NETCore.App.Runtime, and NuGet packages.
- The wslsettings configurator has been improved.
- Added automount.cgroups parameter to wsl.conf to select Cgroup version.
- Implemented forced shutdown of a virtual machine if it freezes while stopping all services.
- The virtual machine ID is now passed to the initialization process of running distributions. The "--vm-id" option has been added to the wslinfo utility.
- Added the hvsocket kernel parameter for logging Hyper-V hypervisor events during boot.
- Added support for Debian 13, Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora 43, SUSE Linux 16, openSUSE Leap 16, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Kali 2025.3, and the December build of Arch Linux.
Source: opennet.ru
