Microsoft Releases Ubuntu on Windows Preview

Microsoft surprised many developers in 2016 by introducing the Windows Subsystem for Linux and making an Ubuntu user space available on Windows 10. This was not a traditional virtual machine and did not initially run a Linux kernel.

The first WSL implementation translated Linux system calls into Windows NT kernel operations. Ubuntu command-line programs could therefore run ELF binaries while Windows handled the underlying processes, files, and networking. Developers gained tools such as Bash, ssh, grep, apt, and programming-language runtimes without dual booting.

The feature reflected Microsoft’s changing relationship with open source and developer tooling. Later WSL 2 replaced syscall translation with a lightweight virtual machine running a real Linux kernel, greatly improving compatibility with containers and complex Linux software.