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Using full desktop shell in WSL2 using WSLg (Wayland)
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WSL2GUIWSLg-Wayland-en.md

Full desktop shell in WSL2 using WSLg (Wayland)

Note

If you want a more complete experience and already tried the Xvnc tutorial, maybe you should try the WSLg (Xwayland) instead.

Warning

This is a work in progress tutorial. Things done here may break existing functionality, so be careful!

In this tutorial, we will install and use a full GNOME Desktop environment in WSL2, without any external software. The only requirement is a working WSLg installation. At the moment, the instructions are only for Ubuntu (20.04, 22.04 and 24.04) distros and GNOME, but you can request me to test other distros and desktop environments.

Current limitations

  • No fullscreen support
  • No complete desktop support (with Display Manager)
  • No support to clipboard (copy & paste) from/to Windows

Ubuntu

GNOME

Installing the required packages

  1. Open a Ubuntu (20.04, 22.04 or 24.04) terminal. First of all, we need to make sure everything is up to date.

    sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

  2. WSL doesn't install the app store by default, so we can install it manually (or you can skip this step if you don't need it).

    sudo snap install snap-store

  3. Now we can install the required packages. This may take a long time, so be patient.

    For Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04
    sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop acpi-support-
    For Ubuntu 24.04
    sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop

Important

Note the minus sign (-) after the package acpi-support. This is necessary because it will be installed by default and installing it will render your distro almost unusable (see microsoft/WSL#10059), so we will tell apt to not install it.

Configuring the environment

  1. Now we have everything installed, we must configure some things before using the GNOME Shell. First, we need to deactivate the GDM service, because unfortunately it doesn't work with WSLg yet (at least I didn't figure it out how to make it work).

    sudo systemctl mask gdm.service

  2. Now we need to fix the directory /tmp/.X11-unix/, because it's mounted as read-only by default. We will create a new systemd unit.

    sudo systemctl edit --full --force wslg-fix.service

  3. Paste the code below in the editor.

    For Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04
    [Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/umount /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rm -rf /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mkdir /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chmod 1777 /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ln -s /mnt/wslg/.X11-unix/X0 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
    For Ubuntu 24.04
    [Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/umount /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rm -rf /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mkdir /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chmod 1777 /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ln -s /mnt/wslg/.X11-unix/X0 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chmod 0777 /mnt/wslg/runtime-dir
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chmod 0666 /mnt/wslg/runtime-dir/wayland-0.lock

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

  4. Save the file and close the editor. Now we have to enable this service.

    sudo systemctl enable wslg-fix.service

  5. The last step is to configure the GNOME Shell to start in nested mode.

    For Ubuntu 20.04
    sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/user/gnome-shell-wayland.service.d/
sudo nano /etc/systemd/user/gnome-shell-wayland.service.d/override.conf
    For Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04
    sudo mkdir /etc/systemd/user/org.gnome.Shell@wayland.service.d/
sudo nano /etc/systemd/user/org.gnome.Shell@wayland.service.d/override.conf

  6. Paste the code below in the editor.

    [Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gnome-shell --nested

  7. Save the file and close the editor. Then close the distro terminal window.

  8. Finally we will shutdown WSL.

    wsl.exe --shutdown

    The configuration is complete.

Starting the GNOME Shell

  1. Now open again your distro terminal, then paste the command below.

    DESKTOP_SESSION=ubuntu \
GDMSESSION=ubuntu \
GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=ubuntu \
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus \
GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge \
IM_CONFIG_CHECK_ENV=1 \
IM_CONFIG_PHASE=1 \
QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1 \
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus \
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME \
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/ubuntu:$XDG_DATA_DIRS \
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland \
XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus \
MUTTER_DEBUG_DUMMY_MODE_SPECS=1366x768 \
gnome-session

  2. A GNOME Shell window will appear.

    Ubuntu 20.04

    GNOME Shell on Ubuntu 20.04

    Ubuntu 22.04

    GNOME Shell on Ubuntu 22.04

    Ubuntu 24.04

    GNOME Shell on Ubuntu 24.04

@tdcosta100
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Hi, @tamboril. Could you please tell me your distro and version, and show the output of the following command?

systemctl cat wslg-fix.service

@tamboril
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Hi, @tamboril. Could you please tell me your distro and version, and show the output of the following command?

systemctl cat wslg-fix.service

cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS"

$ sudo systemctl cat wslg-fix.service
[sudo] password for jharris: 
# /etc/systemd/system/wslg-fix.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/umount /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rm -rf /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mkdir /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/chmod 1777 /tmp/.X11-unix
ExecStart=/usr/bin/ln -s /mnt/wslg/.X11-unix/X0 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

@tdcosta100
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Everything seems to be correct. Could you please attach the file created by the following command?

journalctl -b --no-pager > ~/journalctl.txt

It will be created in your home directory, available in Windows Explorer.

@tamboril
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Everything seems to be correct. Could you please attach the file created by the following command?

journalctl -b --no-pager > ~/journalctl.txt

It will be created in your home directory, available in Windows Explorer.

GH isn't letting me attach a .txt file. I'll try emailing.

I did notice that /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 does not show as a symbolic link with ls -dl. I tried moving it out of the way so I could re-create it like them service script does, but fails with "read-only filesystem":

srwxrwxrwx 1 jharris jharris 0 Jul 28 14:16 /tmp/.X11-unix/X0
jharris@JHARRIS-DESKTOP:~$ sudo mv /tmp/.X11-unix/X0 /tmp/X0_save
mv: cannot remove '/tmp/.X11-unix/X0': Read-only file system```

@tdcosta100
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I was thinking in you attaching it as a file, because as text it would be truncated. You can remove the big text from your post. But I still need the entire file to figure it out what's happening.

@tamboril
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tamboril commented Jul 28, 2024 •
edited
Loading

Yeah it's not letting me attach it.:
image

I noticed that /tmp/.X11-unix is a read-only tmpfs filesystem of its own:
mount|grep X11
journalctl

none on /tmp/.X11-unix type tmpfs (ro,relatime)

@tdcosta100
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Did you enable the wslg-fix.service in the step 4 of Configuring the environment?

@tamboril
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Did you enable the wslg-fix.service in the step 4 of Configuring the environment?

I had not. But I went back and did that. Now the symbolic link is there, but I still get the same results, even after shutting down and restarting wsl. I've probably done bad things to my Ubuntu instance over time. I don't mind nuking it and starting afresh. I'll report after that.

@tdcosta100
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Nice. Unfortunately it's too easy to mess things up, maybe redoing everything will make it work well.

@tdcosta100
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So this has been working great so far, and again, I thank you for the effort you put into this tutorial.

Since budgie seems to be making problems, what about pop os? I saw a video of someone rocking it in wsl: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SYooHm8bzJU

Hi, @phil9309. Followed the instructions and managed to install Pop_OS over Ubuntu 22.04. After installing it, you need to follow the steps of this tutorial. Then the launch command is:

DESKTOP_SESSION=pop \
GDMSESSION=pop \
GNOME_SHELL_SESSION_MODE=pop \
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus \
GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge \
NOTIFY_SOCKET=/run/user/`id -u`/systemd/notify \
QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1 \
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus \
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=pop:GNOME \
XDG_DATA_DIRS=/usr/share/pop:$XDG_DATA_DIRS \
XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland \
XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus \
MUTTER_DEBUG_DUMMY_MODE_SPECS=1366x768 \
gnome-session

You can see it's very similar to the GNOME one. I hope you will be able to reproduce it.

@jordankoehn
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This is really impressive, all my previous attempts at launching gnome in wsl2 failed. Will try this later. Also, see my wsl2 sway repo for how I managed to sync clipboard between windows and Wayland. Clipboard-sync may also work, but it didn't for me

@vinberg88
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Have half screen when i try to start gnome 47 and Manjaro hehe What can be wrong...

half

Regards,
Mattias Vinberg

@tdcosta100
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Since this tutorial doesn't cover the use of VcxSrv, I cannot help you with your problem.

@wartalski
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Great tutorial! Do you plan to upgrade it for Ubuntu 24.10?

@tdcosta100
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@wartalski, when an Ubuntu 24.10 image for WSL gets ready, yes!

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