Using Ubuntu with Windows

WSL2 is technically a lightweight virtual machine. While virtual machines are historically partitioned off from their host operating system, WSL2 provides some useful ways to transfer both data and commands across that boundary, making it easier and faster to accomplish our goals by combining the strengths of Windows and Linux.

Accessing Linux directories from Windows

From time to time, we'll want to transfer files from our Windows system to our Linux system. For example, maybe we have a large text file we want to ingest into a Linux command-line tool for further processing.

WSL2 creates a locally restricted network share for each installed distribution, under the \\wsl$ prefix. For example, our Ubuntu filesystem root is available under the \\wsl$\Ubuntu\ network path:

Figure 9.1 – WSL2 creates a network share that exposes our Linux filesystems to Windows

Using Windows Explorer, we can move, copy, and edit our...