Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS WSL Base

Look for more stuff here for WSL - https://github.com/vinberg88

A minimal, desktop-free Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS distribution for Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2).

This project is intended to provide a clean Pop!_OS base for terminal, development, DevOps and user-selected desktop workloads. No desktop environment, display manager, X11 server configuration, Wayland compositor, or third-party display-server configuration is preinstalled.

Current release: 0.1.1
Base OS: Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS (noble)
Architecture: x86_64 / amd64
Source OCI image: ghcr.io/aldpuzz/pop_os:latest
Default locale: en_US.UTF-8
systemd: enabled

The source image digest used for each build is recorded in MANIFEST.txt so a release can be traced back to the exact OCI image that was exported.

• Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS userspace
• WSL2 support
• systemd as PID 1
• English first-run OOBE
• normal UNIX user created with UID/GID 1000
• sudo configured for the OOBE-created user
• Windows interoperability enabled
• WSLg-compatible base environment
• Pop!_OS repositories preserved
• DNS managed by WSL
• en_US.UTF-8 default locale
• no desktop environment
• no display manager
• no X410-specific configuration
• built-in pop-wsl diagnostics

Double-click:

Pop_OS-24.04-WSL-Base-0.1.1-x86_64.wsl

wsl --install --from-file .\Pop_OS-24.04-WSL-Base-0.1.1-x86_64.wsl

Then start the distribution:

wsl -d Pop_OS-24.04

On first launch, the English OOBE asks for a username and password. The account is created with UID/GID 1000 and added to the sudo group.

Inside Pop!_OS WSL:

pop-wsl doctor

A healthy clean installation should report:

systemd:               running
User systemd:          running
User D-Bus:            OK
Failed units:          0
Windows interop:       OK
Pop!_OS repositories:  OK
Desktop:               not installed
Status:                READY

Additional commands:

pop-wsl info
pop-wsl version

Use the normal Pop!_OS/Ubuntu package workflow:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

A desktop is deliberately not included. Install whatever desktop stack you want after the base system is running.

This keeps the distribution small, generic and suitable for normal WSL use instead of tying it to a particular desktop, X server or compositor.

Release 0.1.1 contains the fixes validated on a clean WSL2 cold boot:

• installs kmod
• creates /etc/modules
• masks getty@tty1.service
• masks tpm-udev.path
• masks tpm-udev.service
• masks systemd-binfmt.service because WSL owns the read-only binfmt_misc interface
• intentionally keeps kmod-static-nodes.service available

Windows interoperability remains enabled.

From Linux/WSL:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

From PowerShell, for the .wsl file:

Get-FileHash .\Pop_OS-24.04-WSL-Base-0.1.1-x86_64.wsl -Algorithm SHA256

Compare the result with SHA256SUMS from the same release.

Requirements:

• Linux or WSL environment
• Docker available to the current user
• network access to GHCR and the Pop!_OS repositories

Build:

chmod +x build-pop-os-wsl-0.1.1.sh
./build-pop-os-wsl-0.1.1.sh

Rebuild an existing release directory:

./build-pop-os-wsl-0.1.1.sh --force

Default output:

~/pop-os-wsl-0.1.1/

The builder produces:

Pop_OS-24.04-WSL-Base-0.1.1-x86_64.wsl
Pop_OS-24.04-WSL-Base-0.1.1-x86_64-rootfs.tar.gz
README.txt
MANIFEST.txt
SHA256SUMS

The .wsl and -rootfs.tar.gz files are intentionally byte-identical gzip-compressed tar archives. For a public GitHub release, uploading the .wsl file is normally sufficient; the rootfs archive is optional and duplicates the same bytes.

Warning: This permanently deletes the selected WSL distribution and all data stored inside it.

wsl --unregister Pop_OS-24.04

This is a community WSL build. The OCI rootfs source used by this builder is ghcr.io/aldpuzz/pop_os:latest; it is not presented as an official System76 WSL image. The builder validates that the source identifies itself as Pop!_OS 24.04 / Noble and verifies the expected Pop!_OS repository entries before packaging.

Pop!_OS and System76 names and marks belong to their respective owners. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by System76.

How to install KDE dekstop via wsl https://github.com/vinberg88/pop-os-wsl/blob/main/Pop-OS-24.04-KDE.txt

How to install GNOME - WSL - https://github.com/vinberg88/pop-os-wsl/blob/main/POP-OS-24.04-GNOME.txt

How to install UKUI desktop - WSL - https://github.com/vinberg88/pop-os-wsl/blob/main/POP-OS-24.04-UKUI.txt

How to install BUDGIE desktop - WSL - https://github.com/vinberg88/pop-os-wsl/blob/main/POP-OS-BUDGIE.txt

Regards, Mattias Vinberg - Stockholm - Sweden