UML Linux on WSL2

Since WSL2 runs an actual Linux kernel that means you can run 32bit binaries! And that now means you can run stuff like ancient unmodified UML kernels on Windows! Isn’t that great!

I followed my old posts here & here, to get running or the short version being:

dpkg --add-architecture i386
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386 slirp

Download a kernel, linux-2.6.24-rc7.bz2 and a root filesystem: Debian-4.0-x86-root_fs.bz2 and get running right away:

./linux-2.6.24-rc7 ubd0=test_fs eth0=slirp mem=512m

And it just worked!

4 thoughts on “UML Linux on WSL2

  1. Have you tried to install wine within WSL2? I would try that but unfortunately my Windows laptop was died for power issues and I’m stick to use my hackintosh for work. I think it will amazing if only Wine 32 bit could run 16-bit Windows 16 bit apps works within that as like in real Linux!

  2. oh wow, that’s not actually a use case I considered for WSL. I wonder if this could be done to get other old linux stuff running

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