Practical tips on using the Linux subsystem on Windows

These tips are for Windows users who are getting started with Linux via WSL.

Type bash at a PowerShell or command prompt to run bash.

Use bash inside ConEmu (see above).

From within bash,

• the C drive is at /mnt/c/ .
• pwd outputs your current location.
• lsb_release -r outputs your Ubuntu version.
• SOME_VAR="SOME_VALUE" sets a local environmental variable.
• export SOME_VAR="SOME_VALUE" sets a global environmental variable.
• printenv SOME_VAR outputs the environmental variable
• ampersands separate multiple commands: command1 && command2 && et cetera
• single quotes behave differently than do double quotes

Use PowerShell in the Linux subsystem for Windows.

1. install PowerShell
2. open a bash prompt
3. type powershell
4. type exit to return to bash

Install Node/NPM from bash .

Paste from the Window's clipboard into bash using right click.

Clear the current input using Ctrl + E + U .

Convert from dos to unix line endings in vim with this command :set ff=unix .

Pipe command output to file and show it in the sell command |& tee output.txt .

Window's clip.exe can be run from the bash shell to copy/paste. E.g.

`clip.exe < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub`

Install/uninstall

• sudo apt-get install git
• sudo apt-get remove git