Stop Playing With Window Managers And Get On With Building Robots By Using WSL 2 For Your Hobby Robotics Development

I've installed Ubuntu over 100 times, spending over 200 hours of my life doing it, and it this has to stop!

When playing with robots, and in particular when using the Robotic Operating System, reinstalling Ubuntu to get the correct version can be a common occurrence. Combine that with dual boot operating systems, virtual machines, docker containers or running windows X servers the time spent setting up the OS just ads up.

And when the project is a part time hobby project, by the time I've installed Ubuntu I've also run out of time for the fun part.

But Windows 11's WSL2 has finally solved this!

I was pleasantly surprised when I found that WSL now has seamless support for GUI apps.

Just make sure that your WSL is actually running WSL2, and your good to go. RViz, Gazebo and everything else can be spun up conveniently.

These days I can spend more of my hobby robot time actually programming robots and less on Linux system admin.

But Windows 11's WSL2 has finally solved this!

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