Clear Linux Windows WSL Installation

Features:

• Works in 2024
• The latest releases, provided weekly
• Fully automated via GitHub Actions

Installation

• Update your Windows (min 2 Apr 2023, required for importing from .xz)

• Activate WSL if not have been activated yet

• Download the latest Clear Linux server rootfs tarball (main purpose of this repo is maintaing of this tarball):
  https://github.com/gh0st-work/clear-linux-wsl/releases/latest/download/clear_linux_rootfs.tar.xz

• Start a new Powershell session:
  <WIN + r> powershell <ENTER>
  
  
  Or just run Powershell from Windows Start Menu

• Create sources directory:

  mkdir /wsl_distros/sources

  

• Copy (or move) the clear_linux_rootfs.tar.xz to the /wsl_distros/sources/ directory:

  cp -v $HOME/Downloads/clear_linux_rootfs.tar.xz /wsl_distros/sources/

  

• Update WSL (min 2 Apr 2023, required for importing from .xz):

  wsl.exe --update

• Register Clear Linux as a new WSL2 distro:

  wsl.exe --import ClearLinux /wsl_distros/ClearLinux /wsl_distros/sources/clear_linux_rootfs.tar.xz --version 2

• Ensure the distro has been imported correctly:

  wsl.exe --list --verbose

  

• Create on your desktop shortcut with path:

  %windir%\system32\cmd.exe /k cd %userprofile% && wsl.exe -d ClearLinux --cd ~

  and name
  ClearLinux
  
  Recomended:

  • Change icon in Properties to https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gh0st-work/clear-linux-wsl/main/clear_linux_logo.ico

• Run it

  

• Update the system:

  swupd update

• Create a new user (change USERNAME to your username):

  useradd -m -s /bin/bash USERNAME

  passwd USERNAME

• Add basic bundles:

  swupd bundle-add sysadmin-basic sudo

• Add user to sudoers (change USERNAME to your username):

  usermod -aG wheel USERNAME

• Write default wsl.conf config:

  cat >> /etc/wsl.conf << 'EOF'
  [automount]
  enabled = true
  options = "metadata,uid=1000,gid=1000,umask=22,fmask=11,case=off"
  mountFsTab = true
  crossDistro = true
  
  [network]
  generateHosts = true
  generateResolvConf = true
  
  [interop]
  enabled = true
  appendWindowsPath = true
  
  [user]
  default = USERNAME

  Don't forget to change USERNAME to your username, and then exit writing with EOF at a new line:

  EOF

• Shutdown WSL machine with:

  exit
  wsl.exe -d ClearLinux --shutdown
  exit

• Edit your shortcut path (in Properties) adding -u USERNAME (change USERNAME to your username) before --cd ~:

  %windir%\system32\cmd.exe /k cd %userprofile% && wsl.exe -d ClearLinux -u USERNAME --cd ~

• Run it

  

  And here you are, logged as your user without any errors

• Recommended:

  • Pin to taskbar after running

• Happy hacking :)

  And don't forget to star the repo pls!

Installation from source

For more experienced users: you can use get_latest_rootfs.sh script to get official images yourself, if you assume this repo GitHub releases can be compromised

• Install Ubuntu WSL and run it
• Download the script:

  wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gh0st-work/clear-linux-wsl/main/get_latest_rootfs.sh

• Run it:

  bash get_latest_rootfs.sh 1 1

  Where:

  • First argument sets xz compression level to 1 as you are not limited by GitHub size limit and don't want to waste time
  • Second argument sets threads count to 1, you can calculate it yourself using lscpu
    
• Copy result tarball to Windows Downloads folder (change WINDOWS_USERNAME to your Windows user username):

  sudo cp clear_linux_rootfs.tar.xz /mnt/c/Users/WINDOWS_USERNAME/Downloads/

• Follow default installation instructions

Devlog

• The main idea is to update & maintain this installation method extract rootfs to .tar that was mentioned in this tutorial to contain the latest version (not 4 years old version as it is in the original tutorial)

• Was decided to use GitHub Action to provide the latest version & to save my 20yo laptop resources (mainly my time lol) & just for fun of automation

• GitHub only allows to store maximum 2GB files

• Was decided to experiment with compression

• gzip compression of any level did not give satisfying result

• Found that wsl supports .xz compression container (w lzma2 compression, generally available on any unix machine) as of 2 Apr 2023 as mentioned here

• Found unix compressions benchmark #1 & benchmark #2

• xz -4 level of compression gives 1.9G output that is alright (for now, may change in future, have ~10-15% to compress where)

• xz -T2 threads specified to speedup compression (takes ~14min to compress & ~9min to upload artifact & ~1min to upload artifact to release draft, ~24min together)

• Found an article that explains some math behind determining the optimal threads count. This task does not require such kind of complexity to measure lzma2 algo params, but just found it interesting for further reading

• Works as 4 Dec 2023, provided detailed README.md & Installation from source instructions, trust nobody not even yourself kekw

• Now accepts get_latest_rootfs.sh arguments & changed Installation from source instructions & tested

• Auto-releases enabled: Every GHA run automatically publishes a release

• xz -5 level of compression set, as 40580 release reaches 1.9-2.0 GB. New 5 level of compression gives 1.85 GB result (takes ~18min to compress & ~8min to upload artifact & ~1min to upload artifact to release draft, ~27min together)

• xz -7 level of compression is set, as 41780 release reaches 2.1 GB. New 7 level of compression gives 1.43 GB result. GitHub runners drive space limit 19 GB is exceeded, so the order of operations has been changed to save space. Takes ~17min in total.