Microsoft announced about the start of testing the possibility of launching Linux applications with a graphical interface in the environment based on the WSL2 subsystem (Windows Subsystem for Linux), designed to start executable Linux files in Windows. Applications are fully integrated with the main Windows desktop, including the location of the shortcuts in the START menu, sound playback, microphone recording, OpenGL hardware acceleration, display information about programs in the taskbar, switching between Alt-Tab programs, copying data between Windows – and Linux programs through clipboard.
for Organization Output of Linux-Application Interface to the main desktop Windows developed in Microsoft A composite manager Rail- Shell using the Wayland protocol and the Weston code base. The output is carried out using the RDP-Rail (RDP Remote Application Integrated Locally), which differs from previously available in the Weston RDP besende the fact that the composite manager does not perform the desktop rendering itself, and redirects individual surfaces (WL_SURFACE) on the RDP Rail channel to display On the main desktop Windows. To start x11 applications, XWayLand is used.
Sound output is organized using the Pulseaudio server, which also interacts with Windows using the RDP protocol (for sound output, the RDP-Sink , and for input – RDP-Source ). Commis server, XWayland and Pulseaudio packaged in the form of a universal mini-distribution WSLGD , including components for abstraction of the graphics subsystem and based on distribution CBL-Mariner Linux , also used in the cloud infrastructure of Microsoft. WSLGD starts using virtualization mechanisms, and Virtio-FS is used for sharing between the guest surroundings with Linux and the Windows host system.