About

As of March 2018 Debian is available for Windows users through the Windows store as an app for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

The app gives you a Debian stable command line environment running on the Windows kernel. Most of the packages in Debian stable should "just work".

Any software relying on systemd or low-level hardware accessibility might fail due to missing support from the current Windows kernel interface.

As WSL is a pretty new project from Microsoft improvement can be expected to happen with every new Windows 10 stable channel release (approx. every 6 months).

The app launcher will be updated for stable release features respectively.

Install

To use the store app you have to enable the WSL subsystem first by following the guide.

Afterwards just install the Debian app from the Microsoft Store.

You will be asked to define a user and password upon first start. This user will also be given sudo rights.

There is a way to install the Debian WSL distro offline & without using Microsoft Market.

Feedback

Please use the Microsoft Store review/feedback to report bugs or feature requests for now.

There is a IRC channel on OFTC to discuss WSL related stuff: #debian-wsl

FAQ

How do I install a newer release?
You can install the app, change your sources.list and upgrade your install.
How many people are using Debian via WSL?
Approximately 250,000 at last count.

Code & Issues

The app code resides in salsa:

https://salsa.debian.org/rhaist-guest/WSL

You can also leave known issues there.