wsl-terminal
A terminal emulator for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), based on mintty, fatty and wslbridge2.
All emojis designed by OpenMoji – the open-source emoji and icon project. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
中文页面(The Chinese README is no longer maintained)
Screenshot
More screenshots here.
Usage
Make sure you have 7z installed. On Ubuntu run: sudo apt install p7zip-full, on Archlinux: run pacman -S p7zip
run wsl bash -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mskyaxl/wsl-terminal/master/scripts/install.sh -qO -)"
in cmd.exe or bash -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mskyaxl/wsl-terminal/master/scripts/install.sh -qO -)"
in WSL.
For the tabbed version run bash -c "$(wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mskyaxl/wsl-terminal/master/scripts/install.sh -qO -)" '' -t
Run open-wsl.exe to open a WSL terminal in current directory (need to be on a local NTFS volume, more details).
Run tools/1-add-open-wsl-terminal-here-menu.js (help) to add a Open wsl-terminal Here context menu to explorer.exe (Run tools/1-remove-open-wsl-terminal-here-menu.js to remove it). If you are using Total Commander, Use wsl-terminal with Total Commander may help you.
run-wsl-file.exe can run any .sh (or any others like .py .pl) script files in wsl-terminal, support Open With context menu in explorer.exe.
vim.exe can open any files with vim (in wsl-terminal), support Open With context menu in explorer.exe. vim.exe can be renamed to emacs.exe nvim.exe nano.exe ... to open files in emacs nvim nano ....
Keyboard shortcuts
key
function
Alt + Enter
Fullscreen
Alt + F2
New window
Alt + F3
Search text
Ctrl + [Shift] + Tab
Switch window
Ctrl + = + - 0
Zoom
Ctrl + Click
Open URL or dir/file under the cursor
Ctrl + Right Click
Open context menu
Params
open-wsl
Usage: open-wsl [OPTION]...
-a: activate an existing wsl-terminal window.
if use_tmux=1, attach the running tmux session.
-l: start a login shell and cd to $HOME (doesn't work with use_tmux=1).
-c command: run command (e.g. -c "echo a b; echo c; cat").
-e commands: run commands (e.g. -e echo a b; echo c; cat).
-C dir: change directory to a WSL dir (e.g. /home/username).
-W dir: change directory to a Windows dir (e.g. c:\Users\username).
-d distro: switch distros.
-b "options": pass additional options to wslbridge.
-B "options": pass additional options to mintty.
-h: show help.
cmdtool (run it in WSL)
Usage: cmdtool [OPTION]...
wcmd: run Windows programs with cmd.exe /c.
wstart: run Windows programs with cmd.exe /c start.
wstartex file|url: like wstart, but use WSL file path.
update: check the latest wsl-terminal version, and upgrade it.
killall: kill all WSL processes.
install dash: install Cygwin dash (for debugging).
install busybox: install Cygwin busybox (for debugging).
Tools
Files in tools directory:
filename
function
1-add-open-wsl-terminal-here-menu.js
Add Open wsl-terminal Here context menu to explorer.exe.
1-remove-open-wsl-terminal-here-menu.js
Remove Open wsl-terminal Here context menu.
2-add-wsl-terminal-dir-to-path.js
Add wsl-terminal directory to Path environment variable.
2-remove-wsl-terminal-dir-from-path.js
Remove wsl-terminal directory from Path environment variable.
3-write-distro-to-config-file.js
Write distro guids to etc/wsl-terminal.conf.
4-create-start-menu-shortcut.js
Create a start menu shortcut to open-wsl -C ~.
4-create-start-menu-shortcut-login-shell.js
Create a start menu shortcut to open-wsl -l.
4-remove-all-start-menu-shortcuts.js
Remove all wsl-terminal start menu shortcuts.
5-add-open-with-vim-menu.js
Add Open with vim in wsl-terminal context menu.
5-remove-open-with-vim-menu.js
Remove Open with vim in wsl-terminal context menu.
6-set-default-shell.bat
Set shell in etc/wsl-terminal.conf to the default shell in WSL.
Double click any .js file to run it. If it was open by any editor, open it with Microsoft (R) Windows Based Script Host, or open a cmd.exe in tools directory and run wscript xxx.js.
Configuration files
etc/wsl-terminal.conf is wsl-terminal config file.
[config]
title="my title"
shell=/bin/bash
use_tmux=0
;icon=
;distro=
etc/themes/* are theme files, use themes.
etc/minttyrc is mintty config file, mintty tips.
Upgrade
Open open-wsl.exe in wsl-terminal directory, run ./cmdtool update to check the latest wsl-terminal version and upgrade it. If the download speed is too slow, you can download wsl-terminal-v{version}.7z from releases with other tools, and put it into wsl-terminal directory, then run ./cmdtool update.
wget and 7z commands are needed (Ubuntu: apt install wget p7zip-full, Archlinux: pacman -S wget p7zip) .
Config files won't be overridden, etc/wsl-terminal.conf and etc/minttyrc will be placed to etc/wsl-terminal.conf.pacnew and etc/minttyrc.pacnew. Some .bak files will be left in bin, because they are running, those files will be removed after the next upgrading.
Use tmux
Install tmux in WSL.
Set use_tmux=1 in etc/wsl-terminal.conf. And set attach_tmux_locally=1 if the version number is less than 0.8.1.
Add these lines to ~/.bashrc (shell=/bin/bash in config) or ~/.zshrc (shell=/bin/zsh in config):
[[ -z "$TMUX" && -n "$USE_TMUX" ]] && {
[[ -n "$ATTACH_ONLY" ]] && {
tmux a 2>/dev/null || {
cd && exec tmux
}
exit
}
tmux new-window -c "$PWD" 2>/dev/null && exec tmux a
exec tmux
}
If you're using fish then update your '~/.config/fish/config.fish' (shell=/bin/fish in config) with
if [ -z "$TMUX" ]; and [ -n "$USE_TMUX" ]
if [ -n "$ATTACH_ONLY" ]
if not tmux a 2>/dev/null
cd; and exec tmux
end
exit
end
tmux new-window -c "$PWD" 2>/dev/null; and exec tmux a
exec tmux
end
Then open-wsl will use tmux.
Switch distros
Use open-wsl -d distro to switch distros:
# list all distros
> wslconfig /l
Legacy (Default)
Ubuntu
# use Ubuntu (will run wslconfig /s Ubuntu before mintty)
> open-wsl -d Ubuntu
# Ubuntu is the default distro now
> wslconfig /l
Ubuntu (Default)
kali-linux
Or set distro in wsl-terminal.conf (Won't change the default distro).
Run tools/3-write-distro-to-config-file.js (help), then a msgbox will show the result:
result has been written to ..\etc\wsl-terminal.conf:
;distro=kali-linux
;distro=Ubuntu
remove the ; before distro to use the distro.
If you want to pass the distro_guid to open-wsl in cmdline:
# pass the distro guid to wslbridge
> open-wsl -b "-d Ubuntu"
Links
Build
Prerequisites
Install WSL and make sure wget tar xz gzip p7zip are available (Ubuntu: run apt install wget tar xz-utils gzip p7zip-full, Archlinux: run pacman -S wget tar xz gzip p7zip) are installed in WSL.
for the tabbed version: cygwin x64 with the following packages installed gcc-g++, make, w32api-headers (for compiling fatty)
Build steps
clone the repo in WSL(to maintain the linux EOL characters) but on windows drive eg (/mnt/c/Users//work/wsl-terminal)
use build.sh to build with the appropiate parameters. ➜ wsl-terminal git:(master) scripts/build.sh -h
Usage:
build.sh -h Display this help message.
build.sh -a Builds wsl-terminal and wsl-terminal-tabbed.
build.sh -t Builds only wsl-terminal-tabbed(cygwin is required).
build.sh Builds only wsl-terminal.
Roadmap
Bug fixing
add x11 support
License
MIT