Graphical Interfaces

This topic is: advanced

If you know how to use Linux and you are comfortable using it, you can do this.

You know WSL can be accessed only by command line. But there's a way to use GUI apps.

WSLg (preinstalled)

WSL2 now have its own graphic server called WSLg. It's preinstalled and ready to go.

GUI applications from WSL showing in Windows Desktop through WSLg

GitHub - microsoft/wslg: Enabling the Windows Subsystem for Linux to include support for Wayland and X server related scenariosGitHub

WSLg GitHub repository

You can try it, install some GUI application like mousepad in WSL.

sudo apt install mousepad

You will see Mousepad in your Windows Start Menu.

In my experience, I prefer using an alternative because WSLg gave me some problems, it's beta anyways, errors may happen.

GWSL

GWSL menu in Windows

GWSLgwsl

GWSL web page

The same name? Almost! GWSL is an XServer, the same idea as WSLg. In my opinion, with GWSL I feel more "in control" than WSLg. We need to configure it before using.

Install

You can install GWSL from the Microsoft Store. Don't worry by the price, that's a donation. If you want it just for free just click "Free Trial", you will have it forever.

When it is installed open GWSL from your Start Menu.

If is the first time you open GWSL in your PC, a firewall prompt may appear. Allow access.

Configure

Before we continue, we need to tell our distro to use GWSL for display exporting.

GWSL is designed to be easy to configure without using any commands.

Open GWSL menu (click the icon in the taskbar) and select "GWSL Distro Tools". Then "Display/Audio Auto-Exporting", "LibGL Indirect" and "Configure DBus".

Look at the marked options, must be like this.

Then, click "Reboot Ubuntu 20.04". That's it.

To check if GWSL was properly configured, check your .bashrc file. At the end, it must have these lines:

File: ~/.bashrc

export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1 #GWSL
export DISPLAY=$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2; exit;}'):0.0 #GWSL
export PULSE_SERVER=tcp:$(cat /etc/resolv.conf | grep nameserver | awk '{print $2; exit;}') #GWSL

Disable WSLg

If you use GWSL, is recommended to disable WSLg too. For this, you must create the file .wslconfig in your Windows personal folder (%HOMEPATH%). Inside, put this:

File: %HOMEPATH%\.wslconfig

[wsl2]
guiApplications=false

Now WSLg is disabled and we can use GWSL without conflicts.

Run Linux apps

Supposing you have installed the same application as before (Mousepad). Open your GWSL Menu and go to "Linux Apps", you will see the app there.

Create shortcuts

With GWSL you can create your own shortcuts. Open the menu and select "Shortcut Creator".

Shortcut Creator window

There you can specify the command of the app to be opened, if it requires 'sudo', and more settings if you need. The shortcut will be created in your Start Menu.