Using Windows10 for development - WLS

Once upon a time I use to develop using a windows machine..

After encountering many annoying issues when trying to setup my local dev environment sometimes taking days attempting to resolve proxy and issues with NPM packages that weren’t designed or tested on windows.

I then moved to the darkside after seeing a coworker join the team and within minutes have his environment setup and running.. on a Mac..

Since then I have been using Ubuntu/Mac operating systems

Recently I rebuilt my home desktop and so also upgraded my old windows duel boot windows7/Ubuntu combo to windows10/Ubuntu and since then have hardly booted into ubuntu

The reason?

Windows subsystem for Linux - WLS

This layer allows the running of binary executables natively meaning that you can run a Linux distro.

Installing/Enabling WSL

To enable WSL go to
Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows features on or off Then enable tick “Windows Subsystem for Linux”

You then get prompted to restart, once your back up and running head over to the windows store and install the ubuntu “App” Ubuntu

Once installed perform a windows search for “Ubuntu” and select the app A terminal will open and your now in a ubuntu bash shell!

Configure

Now that bash is installed you have to get the most out of it

Installing Zsh

Zsh has a crap ton of nice features ontop of the default bash shell

In the bash command line run sudo apt-get install zsh

This installs the Z_shell. In order to default to zsh on load edit the users ~/.bashrc file and add the following lines

if test -t 1; then
  exec zsh
fi

Installing Oh-My-Zsh

In order to make the most of zsh you want to use Oh-My-Zsh which is a framework to help manage and install plugins/themes for zsh

To install run sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/master/tools/install.sh)"

Once installed check out the wiki to see the available themes and plugins.

One plugin I like is autosuggestion

Using your previous history it suggests possible commands that you may want to run as you type

Installing cmder and configure to use base

Cmder is console emulator because well the default windows one is.. crap

Download the latest release

Press Win + Alt + T to open the tasks menu Create a new task clicking +

Give it the name “bash::ubuntu” Give it an icon “/icon %USERPROFILE%\software\cmder\os_ubuntu_alt.ico” changing the path to whatever image you want

And set the command to run to be %windir%\system32\bash.exe ~ -cur_console:p Save and press ctrl + t and select your new task

It will now be running the zsh shell.

So far I have only used it lightly however so far it seem’s to be doing the job but only time will tell