Published 1 minute ago

Faisal Rasool has been a feature writer at How-to Geek since early 2024. He brings five years of professional experience in simplifying technology for his readers on topics like mobile devices, PCs, and online privacy. He tries to help people get the most out of their gadgets and software with the least effort.

In his teenage years, he spent hours every day tinkering with Android phones and Linux builds. Faisal started his career at WhatMobile in 2019 (mostly out of his obsession with Android) where he published over 2,000 news stories. Currently, he contributes to the news section over at AndroidHeadlines.

He also authored more than 100 feature articles for SlashGear, covering Android, iOS, Web, Chromebooks, online privacy/security, and PC content.

Faisal is also pursuing a Bachelor’s in English literature to build up his writing chops. He enjoys watercolors, classic video games, animated films, and conversations with strangers.

Summary

HTG Wrapped 2025: 24 days of tech

24 days of our favorite hardware, gadgets, and tech

1) Run Linux (CLI and GUI) natively on Windows 10/11 with WSL.

• 2) Enable WSL + Virtual Machine Platform, enable BIOS virtualization, then install distros via Store or wsl –install.
• 3) Update with apt/pacman, install GUI apps (e.g. firefox) run in Windows taskbar; uninstall with sudo apt remove.

You don’t actually need to spin up a virtual machine to run Linux apps on modern versions of Windows. Microsoft has built tools into Windows 10 and Windows 11 to run Linux apps natively. It’s called Windows Subsystem for Linux or WSL, which allows you to run an entire Linux box that can interact with your Windows file system. Originally, you could only run the Linux command-line terminal with WSL, but the newer versions of WSL allow you to run Linux apps with a full graphical interface.

Installing Linux distributions using WSL is simple enough. The official Microsoft Store has plenty of distros to choose from, which can be installed with a single click. However, you need to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux first. To do that, click the Windows Start button or the search bar and look for this setting.

Turn Windows features on or off

You’ll want to enable the following features:

1. Windows Subsystem for Linux
2. Virtual Machine Platform

You might have to reboot the machine for these changes to take effect. Also, make sure that Virtualization is enabled in the machine’s BIOS settings.

Get the Linux distribution

With that out of the way, we’re ready to install a WSL box. There are two ways you can do this. You can either install a Linux distribution directly from the Microsoft Store or use the command-line console. Use the Microsoft Store if you want to install Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, or Kali Linux. If you want Arch Linux or Fedora, you’ll need to open a terminal.

Open the Microsoft Store and search for ‘Debian,’ ‘Ubuntu,’ ‘Kali Linux,’ or ‘OpenSUSE.’ For most people, Ubuntu will do. Click ‘Get’ and wait for it to finish installing.

The Linux distro should now show up in the Start menu. If it doesn’t, you can look it up in Windows search. For example, type ‘Ubuntu’ and launch the app.

If you want Arch or Fedora (and access to their respective package managers), open the Windows Terminal. Enter the following command to see a list of available Linux distros.

wsl --list --online

Copy the name of the distro you want to install and string it into this ‘install’ command. For example, if I want to install Arch Linux, this command will do it for me.

wsl.exe --install archlinux

The distro will be installed, and you’ll be dropped into the Linux shell right away.

Installing your first Linux app

The first thing you’d want to do is provide a username and password to create an Ubuntu profile. You’ll need this password whenever you run a command as root. The second thing you should do is update the repositories and installed packages. For Ubuntu and Debian-based distros, you can run the following command:

sudo apt update

For Arch,

sudo pacman -Syu

Enter the password you initially set and wait for the system to update. You can now install apps and run them.Instead of hunting down software installers on the web, you just enter simple terminal commands to install software on Linux. One of the first apps Linux people often install is a ‘fetch’ tool, which draws an ASCII logo of your operating system alongside its specs. Let’s try running this command.

sudo apt install neofetch

Press ‘Y’ to confirm and with that, the app should be installed. You can launch the Neofetch app by typing its name and hitting Enter.

neofetch

Installing and running GUI apps

Neofetch is a simple command-line tool without a graphical interface, but we can also install and run full-fat GUI apps. For example, you can install the Firefox web browser using an APT command like this.

sudo apt install firefox

Once the command finishes running, you can launch the browser by entering the package name in the terminal.

firefox

The app will launch in its own window on the taskbar, so you can use it like you would any normal Windows app. You can tell your Windows apps from Linux apps by the penguin mascot icon.

In my experience, the performance is near-native. The Linux apps run just as fast as Windows apps, if not faster. At any rate, they’re much more performant than they would be inside a traditional virtual machine.

Some bonus tips

The official Ubuntu repositories have thousands of packages, which you can easily install using APT commands. Even if you don’t know the exact name of the package, you can search for it using the ‘search’ command.

sudo apt search okular

You’ll get a list of matches to pick from, which you can copy and then string into the ‘install’ command.

sudo apt install okular

If that doesn’t feel intuitive, you can always Google the correct package name and copy that. All official APT packages are verified, so you’ll always get authentic software.

To uninstall an app, you can use the same package name but with the ‘remove’ command.

sudo apt remove firefox

---

On modern Windows, you should only spin up a Linux virtual machine if you need an entire Linux desktop environment. You can do a lot of stuff with a simple WSL box. When you’re just trying to run Linux apps, it’s always faster and easier than running a heavy virtual machine.