rubuntu-wsl

1. Enable Windows Subsystem 2 for Linux

Open PowerShell as Admin and run:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

dism.exe /online /enable-feature featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

It says /norestart but, yeah, reboot.

2. Download and install the Linux kernel update package

https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi

3. Enable WSL 2

This step requiers Windows 10 version 1903 or higher, check winver.
Open PowerShell and run:

wsl --set-default-version 2

4. Download Ubuntu 20.04

Linux distros can be installed from the Microsoft store. But we can also just use:
https://aka.ms/wslubuntu2004 Enter your Linux user name and password and you are ready to go.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

5. Fix the ssh port

Per default, our new distro listen on port 22 for ssh connections. That might/will conflict with your Windows host, thus let's fix this:

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Replace the lines

#port 22
PasswordAuthentication no

with

port 2222
PasswordAuthentication yes

Press CTRL-X y to save the changes. Now, (re)start the ssh server:

sudo ssh-keygen -A
sudo service ssh start

Now we can 'ssh' into the distro from CMD or PowerShell (or remotely):

ssh user@127.0.0.1 -p 2222

6. Install Git, R and rstudio-server

sudo apt install git r-base r-base-core r-recommended r-base-dev gdebi-core build-essential libcurl4-gnutls-dev libxml2-dev libssl-dev  

wget https://rstudio.org/download/latest/stable/server/bionic/rstudio-server-latest-amd64.deb  

sudo gdebi rstudio-server-latest-amd64.deb  

Ignore the message Couldn't find an alternative telinit implementation to spawn.

7. Start rstudio-server

sudo rstudio-server start

8. Access the server

Open your web-browser and navigate to: http://127.0.0.1:8787.

9. Autostart Linux servers at Windows-boot

Back in Windows, create the file rstudio-server.vbs:

Set ws = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell")  
ws.run "wsl -d Ubuntu-20.04 -u root service ssh start", vbhide  
ws.run "wsl -d Ubuntu-20.04 -u root rstudio-server start", vbhide  

The type Windows key + R to open the run-command. Type Shell:startup to open the startup-folder. Move the .vbs file to this folder.

10. Take a snapshot

Now that we have a 'clean' installation, it's time to take our first snapshot. In PowerShell run:

wsl --export Ubuntu-20.04 rubuntu.tar.gz

This will create the file rubuntu.tar.gz which serves as backup, could be moved to a different machiene or simply 'imported' back once you have messed up our install enough:

wsl --unregister Ubuntu-20.04
wsl --import Ubuntu-20.04 rubuntu.tar.gz