comment on

I'd really hate to go back to having to run a linux VM on windows just to get perl to use a database--it takes a whopping amount of space to do it this way, not to mention the added layers of complexity with accessing it via the VM.

By coincidence, just the other day I installed Ubuntu on my Windows 11 laptop. I seem to have fluked a clean Ubuntu WSL2 install with a single wsl --install command, to install the default Ubuntu distribution of Linux from the Microsoft Store. It required a couple of reboots IIRC. I started with 148 GB free of 237 GB. I now have 131 GB free, i.e. Ubuntu on WSL2 took around 17 GB.

I am now happily running WSL2 Linux: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.90.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64). All I've done on it so far is run some basic Perl programs and compile and run some C++ programs with g++ and clang++. It seems to be just a basic core Perl v5.34, so you'll need to install DBD/DBI and other modules from CPAN. Update: I later built perl v5.36 from source (update: improved build perl v5.38 notes) and played around with many Linux C++ libraries, including boost, Catch2 and Abseil.

For WSL2, I believe you must first upgrade to Windows 11 (or at least the latest version of Windows 10) -- more detail on this topic can be found at WSL2 on wikipedia or perhaps by ringing Microsoft Support. Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this topic just throwing it out there in case it helps. (AFAIK, the main alternative to WSL2 is to install VMware, followed by multiple different Linux distros).

References Added Later

Windows Subsystem for Linux (wikipedia)
Install Linux on Windows with WSL (Microsoft doco)
apps.microsoft.com Developer tools - Ubuntu by Canonical Group Limited (Microsoft Store)

get started with graphical applications on Ubuntu (ubuntu.com tutorial) - I haven't done this (using Ubuntu from the command line does all I need for now)
youtube tutorial on using GUI apps on WSL2 Ubuntu

Re^7: Meaning of XS object version (Package Manager Security References - example building Perl securely from source) by me (2023) - example secure build of perl v5.38.0 build from source on my Ubuntu Linux VM using cpanm
Re^2: THREE new perl releases [Updated releases!] - build perl v5.38.2 from source by me (2023) - later example, building perl v5.38.2 on Ubuntu
Re^2: Test failing during CPAN Testing by Bod (2023) - see responses from afoken, ikegami

Perl on Windows 10 by kcott (2019) - moving from macOS to Windows; lots of options in this long thread, kcott went for Cygwin and perlbrew on Windows 10
Re: How do you run Perl on _your_ system? by kcott (2023) - uses Cygwin on Win10 (and perlbrew)
Re: diagnostics pragma throwing a compile-time error in Cygwin-Perl by kcott (2025) - long time user of Cygwin and perlbrew for both personal and $work tasks

Scrappy WSL Ubuntu Notes

Steps to Install Ubuntu on WSL2 on Windows 11:

See : How to install WSL on Windows 11

To see the version of WSL you are running (e.g. WSL2) enter the command : wsl -l -v. For example, I see:

C:\> wsl -l -v
  NAME      STATE           VERSION
* Ubuntu    Stopped         2

or:

* Ubuntu    Running         2

To see alternative versions:

C:\>wsl -l -o
The following is a list of valid distributions that can be installed.
Install using 'wsl.exe --install <Distro>'.

NAME                                   FRIENDLY NAME
Ubuntu                                 Ubuntu
Debian                                 Debian GNU/Linux
kali-linux                             Kali Linux Rolling
Ubuntu-18.04                           Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Ubuntu-20.04                           Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu-22.04                           Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Ubuntu-24.04                           Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
OracleLinux_7_9                        Oracle Linux 7.9
OracleLinux_8_7                        Oracle Linux 8.7
OracleLinux_9_1                        Oracle Linux 9.1
openSUSE-Leap-15.6                     openSUSE Leap 15.6
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP5           SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP5
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-Server-15-SP6    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6
openSUSE-Tumbleweed                    openSUSE Tumbleweed

To install WSL2:

Right click on CMD, select Run as administrator
wsl --install -d NameofLinuxDistro (e.g. wsl --install -d ubuntu)
wsl --install - default is to install ubuntu

Misc Notes:

Right clicking on CMD and selecting Ubuntu, starts it up with:

Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.153.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64)

TODO: upgrade to Ubuntu-24.04?

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