Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Kia Zhi Tang (Ryen Tang)

Technology Evangelist, Infrastructure as Code Developer, Automation Guru

To find out more about me.

Getting Debian distro environment on Windows for DevOps

7 minute read

Previously, I blogged about:

And since then, there are a few additional distros available for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and is definitely encouraging to have more options in Windows today.

Without further ado, I will share my experience on how you can obtain Debian GNU/Linux distro for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and keep the context of this blog post similar to all my previous other distros blog posts.

This walk-through demonstrates on how you can enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), maintain your linux distro environment and upgrade the linux distro instance to stay ahead. Let’s get started with command lines.

Getting Started with Debian on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

In this blog post, I will be documenting the basic steps in getting Bash and other common linux tools from Debian distro working on Windows 10 using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) feature.

What is actually Windows Subsystem for Linux? In short, it is a Windows feature on Windows 10 that allows developers to run linux environment directly on Windows without deploying a virtual machine. That means you get to use Bash and many other tools that focus primarily on linux first to work on Windows.

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Pre-requisite requirements

  • Windows 10 Build 16215 or later
  • Windows Server 1709 or later

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Enable Windows Subsystem for Linux feature on Windows 10

To enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux Feature on Windows 10 and reboot the Windows 10 using PowerShell.

Note: A reboot of the Windows 10 operating system is required after enabling the Windows Subsystem for Linux feature

  • Launch Windows PowerShell with elevated privileges
  • Use the Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature PowerShell cmdlet to enable the feature
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Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature `
    -FeatureName "Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux" `
    -Online `
    -NoRestart:$False ;

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How to obtain Debian distro instance for Windows

Once you have verified that your current environment meets the pre-requisite requirements and you have enabled the Windows Subsystem for Linux feature.

Let’s get started with obtaining Debian distro instance with Windows Subsystem for Linux for Windows 10 or Windows Server.

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Downloading Debian distro instance

In this example, we will use Invoke-WebRequest PowerShell cmdlet to download the linux distro application package to your home folder.

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# Download Debian application for WSL
Invoke-WebRequest `
    -Uri "https://aka.ms/wsl-debian-gnulinux" `
    -OutFile "~\Debian9.appx" `
    -UseBasicParsing ;

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Installation for Windows 10

Natively, you can use Add-AppxPackage PowerShell cmdlet to add the linux distro application package to your Windows 10.

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# Install the Debian 9 WSL application
Add-AppxPackage `
    -Path "~\Debian9.appx" ;

During your initial launch of Debian on Windows 10, you will be requested to configure your new UNIX username and password.

Note: This setup a normal non-administrative user account that will login by default when you launch the distro. The username and password does not require to be same as your Windows user account. To elevate privileges in the distro instance, use sudo and input your password. For more information, you are refer to this documentation here.

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Installation for Windows Server

For Windows Server, you will have use Rename-Item PowerShell cmdlet to rename the linux distro application package extension to a compressed file extension.

Since the file has been renamed to a compressed file extension, you will use Expand-Archive PowerShell cmdlet to expand the compressed file to your home folder or ~\.wsl\distro\ custom home folder location.

After the file has been expanded to the destination, use the Start-Process PowerShell cmdlet to launch the executable to begin the initial configuration of the linux distro instance.

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# Rename the file extension to compressed file extension
Rename-Item `
    -Path "~\Debian9.appx" `
    -NewName "Debian9.zip" ;

# Expand the compressed file to destination
Expand-Archive `
    -Path "~\Debian9.zip" `
    -DestinationPath "~\.wsl\distro\Debian" ;

# Launch the distro setup
Start-Process `
    -FilePath "~\.wsl\distro\Debian\debian.exe" ;

Once the debian.exe is running, the installation will begin and you will be requested to configure your new UNIX username and password.

Note: This setup a normal non-administrative user account that will login by default when you launch the distro. The username and password does not require to be same as your Windows user account. To elevate privileges in the distro instance, use sudo and input your password. For more information, you are refer to this documentation here.

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How to update the Debian distro instance

When you switched into the linux distro for the first time, you will need to use the linux distro’s preferred package manager to update and upgrade those installed packages. This is because most of the linux distro are shipped with an empty/minimal package catalog.

For Debian, we will use apt update command to update the packages index and perform apt upgrade to upgrade those packages based on the up to date packages index. For more information about apt, you can refer to the documentation here.

Note: Microsoft does not maintain those linux distro and the linux distro instance running on Windows Subsystem for Linux are not maintained by Windows Updates.

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# Update and upgrade Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

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How to validate Debian distro instance version

To check the Debian distro instance version, use the cat command on /etc/debian_version file.

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# Display Debian version
cat /etc/debian_version

By using cat command on /etc/debian_version file, you will get an output of the Debian update point releases.

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9.5

If you are interested on the operating system release information, use the cat command on /etc/os-release file.

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# Display Debian release
cat /etc/os-release

And you will obtain the the operating system release information as below.

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PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

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How to perform an in-place upgrade to Debian 10 for testing

If you are still using Debian 9 distro instance and wanted to test Debian 10, you can use apt-get dist-upgrade command to upgrade your distro instance to Debian 10.

Note: At the time of this blog post publication, Debian 10 (Codename: Buster) is not officially released yet and is considered unstable distribution that do not get security updates in a timely manner.

Firstly, check your current sources list by using cat command on the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

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# Check your current sources list
cat /etc/apt/sources.list

The cat command will returns the current configured sources below.

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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates main
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ stretch/updates main

Next, you will modified the current sources list file using the sed command with the -i parameter to replace “stretch” with “buster”.

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# Modify the sources list
sudo sed -i 's/stretch/buster/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

# Review your modified sources list
cat /etc/apt/sources.list

Once you have modified the sources list, review your modified sources list file and check that “stretch” has been replaced with “buster”.

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deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ buster/updates main

Finally, perform an apt-get update to update the package lists followed by apt-get upgrade to install the packages and upgrade Debian 9 to Debian 10 distro using apt-get dist-upgrade command.

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# Upgrade Debian 9 to Debian 10
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Once the upgrade has completed, check the Debian version.

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# Display Debian version
cat /etc/debian_version

You should get an output like below.

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buster/sid

Next, you can check the release information.

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# Display Debian release
cat /etc/os-release

And operating system release information should contains the followings below.

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PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux buster/sid"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

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Conclusion

That is all, folks.

Now, you can have a Unix-like computer operating system derived from GNU/Linux operating system running on Windows Subsystem for Linux in Windows or try out Debian 10 “Buster” for experimental purposes.

If you find that this information useful, feel free to bookmark this or share it with your colleagues and friends.

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References

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