Selfhosting on Windows WSL

Selfhosting on Windows/WSL

This guide is for you if you want to selfhost VS Code on Windows but have a fast compile toolchain by running it in WSL. The drawback is that running VS Code from sources actually runs on Linux which is OK for most development tasks.

Setting up WSL with GUI

In Windows 11 builds that support wslg:

1. Open up powershell and enter wsl --install

In Windows builds that do not support wslg:

1. Install WSL2 and Ubuntu.

2. Install vcxsrv, it will create a XLaunch shortcut in your Desktop`.

3. Download the config.xlaunch file from this gist to your user home directory C:\Users\USERNAME\.

4. Hit Win R and type shell:startup, hit Enter. Add a shortcut here for C:\Program Files\VcXsrv\xlaunch.exe.

5. Right-click, Properties on that shortcut and change Target to "C:\Program Files\VcXsrv\xlaunch.exe" -run C:\Users\USERNAME\config.xlaunch. This will make the X server launch on startup. Double click it to make sure it launches.

6. In WSL, add the following to the end of ~/.bashrc or equivalent:

if [ -z $DISPLAY ]; then
  export DISPLAY="$(tail -1 /etc/resolv.conf | cut -d' ' -f2):0"
fi

2. To test everything, open a new WSL shell and sudo apt install x11-apps && xcalc. You should see an XCalc window pop up. 👍

You may see errors like Error: Can't open display: 172.20.192.1:0": open Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security, check inbound rules and make sure that VcXsrv windows server doesn't block private connections.

Building and running in WSL

1. Install the Debian-based Linux prerequisites.
2. Install the build dependencies

sudo apt install python3 python-is-python3 libsecret-1-dev libxss1 libx11-dev libxkbfile-dev libasound2 libgtk-3-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libnss3 libxtst6 libxi6 libxdamage1 libxcursor1 libxcomposite1 libx11-xcb1 libgbm1

3. Install VS Code Insiders for Windows and the Remote - WSL extension.
4. Follow the build and run instructions for Linux.