You can run Arch Linux in Windows now – here's how

In February, It’s Foss News reported that a WSL image for Arch Linux was on its way, and as of now, it has become official — Arch Linux is available. Windows Subsystem for Linux is a compatibility layer that allows the running of a full-blown Linux environment.

Up until this point, the only images available for WSL have been Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora Remix, openSUSE, Kali Linux, and Pengwin. The addition of Arch delivers a rolling release distribution that should excite plenty of users, developers, and admins who want to finally try Arch.

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This new addition comes by way of several Arch contributors, particularly Robin Candau, who is the official WSL Arch image maintainer. According to the official image site, “Images are built & released monthly (via GitLab CI schedule) and aim to provide the simplest but complete system to offer an outright Arch Linux experience with WSL (including systemd support).” 

The site continues to say, “While images are built regularly, it is strongly recommended running pacman -Syu right after the first launch due to the rolling release nature of Arch Linux.”

How to use the Arch Linux WSL image

To use the Arch Linux WSL image, you need to have WSL 2 installed, as WSL 1 is not supported.

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For those who want to kick the tires of Arch Linux on Windows, you have to open PowerShell and then run the command:

wsl –install

Once you have WSL 2 installed, you can add Arch Linux with:

wsl –install archlinux

After the installation completes, boot Arch Linux with:

wsl -d archlinux

Remember, after you have booted, the first command you should run is to update everything, which is:

pacman -Syu

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Thanks to WSL 2, it is also possible to run Linux GUI desktops and then access them via the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Do keep in mind, however, that the Linux images available to WSL 2 are all command-line based, which means you will need to manually install a desktop environment.

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