Windows Paths in wsl Env
In Windows Subsystem for Linux (aka wsl),
if you have not touched any wsl config
(or something has not been changed),
then you can start apps installed in Windows,
such as vscode. you can start vscode installed
in Windows with code command.
This is because wsl defaults to load PATH
environment variable from Windows.
But it might be a little disturbing if
bunch of paths are loaded in your wsl
or you might just not like it.
You can prevent it with wsl.conf file,
which should be saved /etc/ path in your wsl instance
make a file as /etc/wsl.conf and save the following
contents.
[interop]
appendWindowsPath=False
As the name states, when the variable is set to False, wsl will not append Windows PATH variable to the wsl PATH variable.
But what if you want to append a specific path? Such as vscode? It would be still useful if you can start vscode easily in your wsl instance.
You can do it as you normally do in your Linux system.
In your shell startup script such as .zshrc or
.bashrc, append the path, but in the
perspective of wsl instance.
PATH="$PATH:/mnt/c/<Path to vscode>/Microsoft VS Code/bin"
This will do it. If you want to find more about wsl configurations, go to the link below. Good luck!
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config
Converting Windows Path to wsl Path
You might already know you can access wsl file paths from Windows, or vice versa.
Say you access a wsl file path from your Windows. Then the filepath will be like this:
\\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\home\dlguswo333
On the other hand, if you access a Windows file path from wsl:
/mnt/c/Users/dlguswo333/workspace
And this is not just a mere presentation, you can actually use these
to access paths.
The problem is it is not a piece of cake to get those notations.
Thankfully, there is an executable called wslpath that you can use
to convert one into the other.
For example:
$ wslpath -u 'C:\Users\dlguswo333\workspace'
/mnt/c/Users/dlguswo333/workspace
$ wslpath -w ~/workspace
\\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\home\dlguswo333\workspace