Following the release of the openSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), the Ubuntu Linux operating system is now available for download from the Windows Store.
Ubuntu is an operating system which runs under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Being announced by Microsoft earlier this year, the system mainly targets developers who don’t want to build a dual-boot machine running both Windows 10 and the latest Ubuntu Linux release.
Regarding the latest release of Ubuntu, it turns out that the Canonical’s version of Ubuntu offered in the Windows Store, is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus), which is a long-term supported version that is going to security and software updates for five years ahead.
The special Ubuntu build is called Ubuntu on Windows and it lets users use different command-line utilities, such as the Git distributed version control system, both APT and DPKG CLI package managers, SSH (Secure Shell), and GNU Bash to test their software applications, install other tools, etc.
If you want to install Ubuntu on a Windows system, you’ll need to enable the “Turn Windows features on or off” option in settings first, select the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” feature after that, click the OK button, and restart your computer. With all this set, you can use Ubuntu on WSL if you’re running the latest Windows 10 build on your PC.
According to Microsoft, you can enable Ubuntu on Windows directly from the Administrator PowerShell prompt. In this case you should just go to Enable -> WindowsOptionalFeature -> Online -> FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux, and use the “ubuntu” command in cmd.exe or search and launch Ubuntu on Windows from the start menu.
More detailed instructions are provided on the Windows Store page.
