Install Arch
The installation process is simple.
I'm running WSL version 2.5.10.0.
Here is information on how to install WSL if you need it.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
If you want a list of valid distributions that can be installed, wsl --list --online
Install Arch, wsl --install archlinux
After the install is complete you are logged in as the root user. I recommend you create a root password with the passwd command.
Configure Arch
Let's first create a user and password protect it.
useradd -G wheel -m your-username
passwd your-username
These are the packages I install initially for my setup, if you don't use ZSH don't install those packages. This is just a general idea for you.
sudo pacman -Sy stow sudo base-devel neovim zsh networkmanager zsh-autosuggestions zsh-syntax-highlighting zsh-autocomplete zsh-history-substring-search zoxide fzf bat trash-cli gnu-netcat glibc tcpdump vi git
Enable NetworkManager.
systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
Let's configure the locale settings.
Edit /etc/locale.gen with your favorite editor.
Uncomment the locale you want to use, mine is, en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8
Run locale-gen
Now would be a good time to stop the running instance and start it back up again.
wsl --terminate archlinux and start it back up again with wsl -d archlinux
Next fire up visudo and remove the # from the NOPASSWD line and put a # in front of the other %wheel line. This way you are not prompted for a sudo password.
The WSL Config
Create /etc/wsl.conf and add this configuration to it.
This sets the hostname to archy, tells WSL to not overwrite /etc/hostname and /etc/resolv.conf. Boot using systemd instead of init. If you want to use specific DNS servers remember to put them in /etc/resolv.conf
[network]
hostname = archy
generateHosts = false
generateResolvConf = false
[boot]
systemd=true
[user]
default=ace
Setup yay
Let's get the yay package.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
Change into the yay directory, cd yay
makepkg -si yay
On of the packages I install with yay is for example zsh-vi-mode
yay -Sy zsh-vi-mode