Moving Your JavaScript Development To Bash On Windows

I’m one of those people who can’t live without their Bash Terminal. This sole fact has made it difficult for me to do frontend work on Windows. I work at Microsoft and I’m on a Mac. It wasn’t until the new Surface hardware line came out a few years ago that I realized: I gotta have one of those.

So I got one. A Surface Book 2 running Windows 10 to be exact. I’m drafting this article on it right now. And what of my sweet, sweet Bash prompt? Well, I brought it along with me, of course.

In this article, I’m going to take an in-depth look at how new technology in Windows 10 enables you to run a full Linux terminal on Windows. I’ll also show you my amazing terminal setup (which was named “best ever” by “me”) and how you too can set up your very own Windows/Linux development machine.

If you’ve been craving some of that Surface hardware but can’t live without a Linux terminal, you’ve come to the right place.

Note: At the time of this writing, a lot of the items in this article will require you to use or switch to “preview” or “insiders” builds of various items, including Windows. Most of these things will be in the main Windows build at some point in the future.

Windows Subsystem For Linux (WSL)

The Windows Subsystem for Linux, or, “WSL” is what enables you to run Linux on Windows. But what exactly is this mad science?

The WSL, in its current incarnation, is a translation layer that converts Linux system calls into Windows system calls. Linux runs on top of the WSL. That means that in order to get Linux on Windows, you need to do three things:

1. Enable the WSL,
2. Install Linux,
3. Always include three items in a list.

As it turns out, that translation layer is a tad on the slow side — kind of like me trying to remember if I need splice or slice. This is especially true when the WSL is reading and writing to the file system. That’s kind of a big problem for web developers since any proper npm install will copy thousands of files to your machine. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to left-pad my own strings.

Version 2 of the WSL is a different story. It is considerably faster than the current version because it leverages a virtualization core in Windows instead of using the translation layer. When I say it’s “considerably faster”, I mean way, way faster. Like as fast as me Googling “splice vs slice”.

For that reason, I’m going to show how to install the WSL 2. At the time of writing, that is going to require you to be on the “Insider” build of Windows.

First things first: follow this short guide to enable the WSL on Windows 10 and check your Windows version number.

Once you have it installed, hit the Windows key and type “windows insider”. Then choose “Windows Insider Program Settings”.

You’ll have a couple of different options as to which “ring” you want to be on. A lot of people I know are on the fast ring. I’m a cautious guy, though. When I was a kid I would go down the slide at the playground on my stomach holding on to the sides. Which is why I stay on the slow ring. I’ve been on it for several months now, and I find it to be no more disruptive or unstable than regular Windows.

It’s a good option if you want the WSL 2, but you don’t want to die on the slide.

Next, you need to enable the “Virtual Machine Platform” feature in Windows, which is required by the WSL version 2. To get to this screen, press the Windows key and type “windows features”. Then select “Turn Windows Features on or off”. Select “Virtual Machine Platform”. The “Windows Subsystem for Linux” option should already be enabled.

Now that the WSL is enabled, you can install Linux. You do this, ironically enough, directly from the Windows Store. Only in 2019 would I suggest that you “install Linux from the Windows store”.

There are several different distributions to choose from, but Ubuntu is going to be the most supported across all the tools we’ll configure later on — including VS Code. All of the instructions that come from here on out with assume a Ubuntu install. If you install a different distro, all bets are off.

Search for “Ubuntu” from the Windows Store. There will be three to choose from: Ubuntu, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 16.04. Ubuntu really likes that 04 minor version number, don’t they?

The “Ubuntu” distro (the first one in this screenshot) is the “meta version”, or rather a placeholder that just points to the latest version. As of right now, that’s 18.04.

I went with the meta version because later on I’ll show you how to browse the Linux file system with Windows Explorer and it’s kinda messy to have “Ubuntu 18.04” as a drive name vs just “Ubuntu”.

This install is pretty quick depending on your internet connection. It’s only about 215 megabytes, but I am on a gigabit connection over here and how do you know if someone is on a gigabit connection? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

Once installed, you’ll now have an “Ubuntu” app in your start menu.

If you click on that, you’ll get a Bash terminal!

Take a moment to bask in the miracle of technology.

By default, you’ll be running in the WSL version 1. To upgrade to version 2, you’ll need to open a PowerShell terminal and run a command.

Hit the “Windows” key and type “Powershell”.

From the PowerShell terminal, you can see which version of the WSL you have by executing wsl --list --versbose.

If you’re showing version 1, you’ll need to execute the --set-version command and specify the name of the instance (Ubuntu) and the version you want (2).

wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2

This is going to take a bit, depending on how much meat your machine has. Mine took “some minutes” give or take. When it’s done, you’ll be on the latest and greatest version of the WSL.

The Is Your Brain On Linux… On Windows.

Linux is not Windows. WSL is not a bash prompt on top of a Windows operating system. It is a full operating system unto itself with its own folder structure and installed applications. If you install Node with the Windows installer, typing node in Linux is going to fail because Node is not installed in Linux. It’s installed on Windows.

The true magic of the WSL, though, lies in the way it seamlessly connects Windows and Linux so that they appear as one file system on your machine.

File And Folder Navigation

By default, the Ubuntu terminal drops you into your Linux home directory (or /home/your-user-name). You can move onto the Windows side by going to /mnt/c.

Notice that some permissions are denied here. I would have to right-click the Ubuntu icon and click “Run as Administrator” to get access to these files. This how Windows does elevated permissions. There is no sudo on Windows.

Launching Applications

You can launch any Windows application from the Ubuntu terminal. For instance, I can open Windows Explorer from the Unbuntu terminal.

This also works in reverse. You can execute any application installed on the Linux side. Here I am executing “fortune” installed in Linux from the Windows command line. (Because it ain’t a proper Linux install without random, meaningless fortunes.)

Two different operating systems. Two different file systems. Two different sets of installed applications. See how this could get confusing?

In order to keep everything straight, I recommend that you keep all your JavaScript development files and tools installed on the Linux side of things. That said, the ability to move between Windows and Linux and access files from both systems is the core magic of the WSL. Don’t forget it, cause it’s what makes this whole setup better than just a standard Linux box.

Setting Up Your Development Environment

From here on out, I’m going to give you a list of opinionated items for what I think makes a killer Linux on Windows setup. Just remember: my opinions are just that. Opinions. It just happens that just like all my opinions, they are 100% correct.

Getting A Better Terminal

Yes, you got a terminal when you installed Ubuntu. It’s actually the Windows Console connected to your Linux distro. It’s not a bad console. You can resize it, turn on copy/paste (in settings). But you can’t do things like tabs or open new windows. Just like a lot of people use replacement terminal programs on Mac (I use Hyper), there are other options for Windows as well. The Awesome WSL list on Github contains a pretty exhaustive list.

Those are all fine emulators, but there is a new option that is built by people who know Windows pretty well.

Microsoft has been working on a new application called “Windows Terminal”.

Windows Terminal can be installed from the Windows Store and is currently in Preview mode. I’ve been using it for quite a while now, and it has enough features and is stable enough for me to give it a full-throated endorsement.

The new Windows Terminal features a full tab interface, copy/paste, multiple profiles, transparent backgrounds, background images — even transparent background images. It’s a field day if you like to customize your terminal, and I came to win this sack race.

Here is my current terminal. We’ll take a walk through some of the important tweaks here.

Windows terminal is quite customizable. Clicking the “⌄” arrow at the top left (next to the “+” sign) gives you access to “Settings”. This will open a JSON file.

Bind Copy/Paste

At the top of the file are all of the key bindings. The first thing that I did was map “copy” to Ctrl + C and paste to Ctrl + V. How else am I going to copy and paste in commands from Stack Overflow that I don’t understand?

{
  "command": "copy",
  "keys": ["ctrl+c"]
},
{
  "command": "paste",
  "keys": ["ctrl+v"]
},

The problem is that Ctrl + C is already mapped to SIGINT, or the Interrupt/kill command on Linux. There are a lot of terminals out there for Windows that handle this by mapping Copy/Paste to Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V respectively. The problem is that copy/paste is Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V every other single place in Windows. I just kept pressing Ctrl + C in the terminal over and over again trying to copy things. I could not stop doing it.

The Windows terminal handles this differently. If you have text highlighted and you press Ctrl + C, it will copy the text. If there is a running process, it still sends the SIGINT command down and interrupts it. The means that you can safely map Ctrl + C / Ctrl + V to Copy/Paste in the Windows Terminal and it won’t interfere with your ability to interrupt processes.

Whoever thought Copy/Paste could cause so much heartache?

Change The Default Profile

The default profile is what comes up when a new tab is opened. By default, that’s Powershell. You’ll want to scroll down and find the Linux profile. This is the one that opens wsl.exe -d Ubuntu. Copy its GUID and paste it into the defaultProfile setting.

I’ve moved these two settings so they are right next to each other to make it easier to see:

Set The Background

I like my background to be a dark solid color with a flat-ish logo in the right-hand corner. I do this because I want the logo to be bright and visible, but not in the way of the text. This one I made myself, but there is a great collection of flat images to pick from at Simple Desktops.

The background is set with the backgroundImage property:

"backgroundImage": "c:/Users/YourUserName/Pictures/earth.png"

You’ll also notice a setting called “acrylic”. This is what enables you to adjust the opacity of the background. If you have a solid background color, this is pretty straightforward.

"background": "#336699",
"useAcrylic": true,
"acrylicOpacity": 0.5

You can pull this off with a background image as well, by combining the arcylicOpacity setting with the backgroundImageOpacity:

"backgroundImage": "c:/Users/username/Pictures/earth-and-stars.png",
"useAcrylic": true,
"acrylicOpacity": 0.5

For my theme, transparency makes everything look muted, so I keep the useAcrylic set to false.

Change The Font

The team building the Windows Terminal is also working on a new font called “Cascadia Code”. It’s not available as of the time of this writing, so you get the default Windows font instead.

The default font in the Windows Terminal is “Consolas”. This is the same font that the Windows command line uses. If you want that true Ubuntu feel, Chris Hoffman points out how you can install the official Ubuntu Mono font.

Here’s a before and after so you can see the difference:

"fontFace": "Ubuntu Mono"

They look pretty similar; the main difference being in the spacing of Ubuntu Mono which makes the terminal just a bit tighter and cleaner.

Color Schemes

The color schemes are all located at the bottom of the settings file. I copied the “Campbell” color scheme as a baseline. I try to match colors with their names, but I’m not afraid to go rogue either. I’ll map “#ffffff” to “blue” — I don’t even care.

If you like this particular scheme which I’ve named “Earth”, I’ve put together this gist so you don’t have to manually copy all of this mess out of a screenshot.

Note: The color previews come by virtue of the “Color Highlight” extension for VS Code.

Change The Default Starting Directory

By default, the WSL profile drops you into your home directory on the Windows side. Based on the setup that I am recommending in this article, it would be preferable to be dropped into your Linux home folder instead. To do that, alter the startingDirectory setting in your “Ubuntu” profile:

"startingDirectory": "\\\\wsl$\\Ubuntu\\home\\burkeholland"

Note the path there. You can use this path (minus the extra escape slashes) to access the WSL from the Windows command line.