Microsoft finally updates the Linux kernel in WSL after 2 and a half years

One of the best features of Windows 11 is the Windows Subsystem for Linuxbut the truth is that I had been stuck on version 5.15 for quite a few years now.

Now, after more than 2 and a half years since the last version, specifically since November 2021, Microsoft has finally updated the Linux kernel to version 6.6the latter available as a LTS (long-term support) release.

It is true that there have been versions in between, such as version 6.1 in early 2023, but the difference is that Microsoft never adopted it for its implementation of Linux on Windows despite receiving updates as recent as a month ago, as explained in XDA-Developers.

The latest update to WSL2, currently only available via GitHub, finally brings you up to the latest LTS version, which was first released last November.

After the surprise, What’s new in the WSL update? Well, there aren’t any major changes, but what is important is that, thanks to the new kernel, Microsoft has been able to remove some external patches that they were building on top of the older kernel. This is because these changes have now been included in the Linux kernel itself.

These are All changes in WSL2 v6.6:

• Rolling-lts/wsl/6.6.36.3 Release
• Update to stable kernel version v6.6.36
• New x86 and ARM64 configurations, including loadable modules
• dxgkrnl: Do not print error messages when virtual GPU is not present
• Fewer external patches. Patch sets now included from upstream:
• Page Reporting Commits (feature/page-reporting/5.15)
• vpci commits (feature/vpci/5.15)
• Memory Reclaim Commits (feature/memory-reclaim/5.15)
• Commits from vsock (fix/vsock/5.15)

If you are interested, Configure and install WSL2 on Windows 10 and 11currently you can only do it from GitHub and the truth is that it is not very simple, since you first need to compile it through the source code.

Luckily, since Microsoft is updating the Linux kernel to version 6.6, all of these changes will be coming to the stable version of WSL soon, so you’ll just have to wait a little longer.

Known how we work in Computerhoy.

Tags: Windows 11, Windows 10, Linux