Fedora 42 is now offered alongside Ubuntu, Debian, and other popular distros in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. It’s a neat addition for developers who want to create or audit cross-platform apps without dual booting, as well as professionals who need to access both Windows and Linux on a single machine.
TheWindows Subsystem for Linux(WSL) lets you virtualize Linux distributions within the Windows desktop environment. It’s a near-native solution—zero emulation here, folks—and it doesn’t bog down your system with a resource-hungry virtualized graphical desktop environment. Linux distros in WSL also gain automatic access to your network connection and Windows files, and although WSL centers around the command line, it supports GUI apps.
Technically speaking, you may spin a WSL imagefor any distro you want(so long as it’s compatible with your PC architecture). But officially-supported images are far more easier to deal with.
Microsoftsimplified the WSL imaging processby implementing an improved tar-based architecture late last year. Evidently, this change encouraged the developers at the Fedora Project to hop on board. Their first WSL image is almost fully-featured, though it contains some flaws that need to be addressed in future releases—graphical applications can’t use hardware acceleration, for example, Flatpak isn’t bundled with the image (but can be installed with a simplesudo dnf install flatpak). Arch Linux also joined the WSL family this month, citing Microsoft’s improved imaging process, so we should expect additional distros to follow suit in the coming months.
To installFedora 42in WSL, runwsl –installandwsl –-install FedoraLinux-42in the Windows Terminal. Once that’s done, usewsl –d FedoraLinux-42to fire up the Linux environment. After you come up with a username, you’ll enter Fedora in the “wheel” user group with elevated privileges. Your account will not have a password, so be sure to set one up later if necessary.
You should also read theFedora 42 documentationbefore jumping into WSL, though most won’t. Those who have never tested WSL should start with whatever distro they’re most comfortable with, though longstanding options like Ubuntu, Debian, and OpenSUSE will offer the most polished experience, as they’ve been part of the WSL family for a long time. If you’re a total Linux newbie who’s interested in switching over from Windows, I suggest that you dual boot or fire up a VM with a full desktop environment, as WSL is primarily designed for the command line.
I’ll take this moment to fess up—Fedora Linux was actually added to the WSL distribution listabout three weeks ago, and the effort to create a dedicated Fedora WSL image dates back toDecember 2024. Microsoft simply held off on making an announcement, so the distro’s inclusion in WSL went under the radar.
