How to install WSL v2 on windows 10/11 Home

Sultan Khan - March 9, 2025

Introduction to WSL

WSL is stand for (Windows Subsystem for Linux) which was designed by Microsoft in partnership with Canonical, the creator of Ubuntu. what WSL is enables us is it allow us to run Linux programs natively on windows version of bash shell.

Why to use WSL

You can use WSL for you project development whether you are node, go, python developer. you can install Node, Python or Go inside WSL and separate your work environment. and you can also install Popular Database inside WSL.
You can run Linux GUI App in windows.
You can use Docker Desktop install on windows 10/11 Home version (Backed with WSL distro).
You can also run your kubernetes single node cluster.

Lets install WSL v2

Requirements for running wsl v2 on windows

For x64 systems: Version 1903 or later, with Build 18362 or later.
For ARM64 systems: Version 2004 or later, with Build 19041 or later.

Before installing the wsl v2 we need to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux and Virtual Machine Platform features of windows

Open your PowerShell as Administrator and run this

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Then Restart your PC to complete the installation.

After you PC started Download and install the Kernel Package.

At last open Microsoft Store and in search bar type Ubuntu (like Ubuntu18.04, or 20.04 or 22.04) and click on install, after successful installation it will appear in your start menu click on it at first time it ask for user name and password (carefully type it) wallllaaaa your wsl v2 is now installed on your pc and you can run your favorite Linux command in windows