Microsoft released a major update (version 2.0.0) by WSL, a Windows subsystem for Linux that offers several improvements to cache and disk space management, network management, compatibility modes, security, and more.

The WSL is the biggest representative of Microsoft’s “love” for Linux. A love affair that arose after the appointment of Satya Nadella to the head of Microsoft and that we could see in other applications, the Windows Terminal command line or the WinGet package manager, not to mention the adoption of Microsoft as a reference system. in mobility Linux-based development like Android.

And no; Microsoft is not charity’s little sister, and this “love” is selfish. In order to use Windows and Linux interchangeably, we don’t need to leave Windows for some tasks, such as development tasks, that this subsystem is particularly focused on. Of course, specialists (like our colleagues at verylinux) believe that it is much better to use real Linux, but there is no doubt that this is still an extremely interesting development.

WSL 2.0.0, news

Microsoft hasn’t stopped updating this tool since its surprise launch and with the arrival of Windows 11, it has improved the features, support and general user experience. Now we have another version that includes a set of notable improvements and features (still experimental). We’ll leave you with a summary, which you can also see in the video:

Perhaps the most interesting point of view performance be a new feature “Automatic memory claim”, which dynamically reduces the memory requirements of the WSL virtual machine when used to load the cache. Another major addition in this version is the feature “Rare VHD”which automatically reduces the size of the virtual hard disk (VHD).

In the section sewinghighlights the new feature “mirror mode”, which in addition to providing new features also improves network compatibility. Benefits of enabling mirrored networks in WSL include IPv6 and multicast support, improved network support for VPNs, and the ability to connect to a WSL virtual machine from a local area network (LAN) and to Windows servers from a Linux virtual machine.

WSL 2.0.0 also includes “DNS tunneling”, a feature that changes the method the subsystem uses to resolve Domain Name System requests to improve network compatibility. Another security and network feature is Hyper-V Firewall, which will apply Windows Firewall rules and offer advanced management options. Finally, highlight the function “autoProxy” recently introduced and ensures that WSL seamlessly uses Windows proxy information, further improving network compatibility.

Some of these features are only available to Windows Insiders in the Windows 11 22H2 preview channel, but the rest can already be tested in the stable version available for Windows 11 and Windows 10, which can be installed from the command line with a simple ” wsl –install” with which we will have default version of Linux which is none other than Ubuntu, Hyper-V hypervisor and basic WSL tools.It is also available in Microsoft Store.