wsl-launchers README

This repo contains tooling which permits a Windows system running Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and an X Server implementation for Windows such as X410 to create Windows shortcuts (including on the Start menu) which will launch graphical Linux applications which behave exactly like native Windows apps.

It is inspired by the relevant X410 cookbook documentation but has some improvements:

1. The solution uses the special WSLENV mechanism in new WSL2 builds to handle DISPLAY forwarding and other environment variables instead of having to repeatedly re-set them or story them in login shell scripts;
2. All the launcher logic is containing in a single, three-line VBS script, instead of requiring an additional Windows batch file;
3. A PowerShell script is provided which can generate Windows shortcuts which use the above tooling, instead of requiring this to be hand-written.

Prerequisites

• WSL2
• Ubuntu or other distro installed inside WSL
• An X Server for Windows (X410 has been tested)

Setup

1. Ensure that the distro you've selected is set to the WSL default (using wsl -s).

2. Install whatever package is to have the shortcut created (using e.g. apt).

3. Install a nice GTK theme, e.g. Arc (sudo apt install arc-theme)

4. Add DISPLAY and GTK_THEME Windows environment variables and then export them using the magic WSLENV variable:

   GTK_THEME=Arc:dark
   DISPLAY=172.29.192.1:0.0
   WSLENV=DISPLAY/u:GTK_THEME/u

   DISPLAY here needs to match the IP that your WSL distro uses; you can retrieve this from /etc/resolv.conf on the distro instance

5. Run the generator:

   ./generator.ps1 gedit

   The script takes a second argument if you are launching something more complicated than a binary on $PATH:

   ./generator.ps1 pycharm '"nohup ~/pycharm-community-2020.2.1/bin/pycharm.sh >/dev/null 2>&1"'

6. Right-click your shortcut and select Pin to Start

TODO

• Add icon support to the generator; at the moment it sets all shortcuts to use the default WSL icon (Tux)
• Error handling and usage