Windows Subsystem for Linux gets new icon, other improvements

The Windows Subsystem for Linux has become a surprising crown jewel for Microsoft, giving Windows significant cred amongst developers and admin staff that appreciate Linux’s powerful command-line tools.

Microsoft has therefore continued to update the feature regularly, and have today posted a new update to Github and the Microsoft Store, taking it to version 0.50.2.

The headline feature appears to be a new logo, but the full changelog is pretty long, and can be seen below:

• Added new logo for Windows Subsystem for Linux
• Enable hardware performance counters if the hardware supports them [GH 4678]
  A USERPROFILE%\.wslconfig option has been added to opt-out:

  [wsl2]
  hardwarePerformanceCounters=false
  

• Fix issue when printing system error messages that contain inserts.
• Update the user tile to launch in the user’s home directory instead of C:\WINDOWS\System32
• Restore default signal dispositions for /etc/wsl.conf boot.command process to prevent zombie processes [GH 7575]
• Switch to using a static CRT for Windows binaries
• Use store API to download distributions via wsl.exe --install
• Add --no-launch option to wsl.exe --install
• Many updates to localized strings.
• Switch to an updated tar for importing / exporting WSL2 distributions.
• Update to the official 22000 sdk
• Strip Linux symbols for release builds
• Update Linux kernel to 5.10.74.3
  • Update to upstream stable kernel release 5.10.74
  • Enable BPF Type Format (CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_BTF) for use by eBPF tools [GH 7437]
  • Changed Dxgkrnl version to 2110
    • Implemented D3DKMTShareObjectWithHost
    • Fixed QueryStatistics VM bus alignment issue for the result
    • Implemented D3DKMTCreateSyncFile
    • Address upstream submission feedback
    • Moved d3dkmthk to include/uapi/misc
    • Replaces u32 by __u32 and u64 by __u64
    • Added “_” in front of the enumerator values to support including both WDK and Linux headers
    • Removed holes in the user mode visible structures to be compatible with 32 bit apps
    • Replaces pointer in the user mode visible structures with a define to be u64 for user mode apps
    • Fix build failure with GCC versions older than 8.1 [GH 7558]
  • Enable the Buffer Sharing and Sync File Frameworks (CONFIG_DMA_SHARED_BUFFER, CONFIG_SYNC_FILE) for Dxgkrnl usage

You can find the WSL in the Microsoft Store or on the release page at GitHub here.

[appbox microsoftstore 9p9tqf7mrm4r]