Hello Everyone,

Over the past few months I've been working on an installer script for KDE Neon running in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. This is not a traditional virtual machine; WSL1 is an implementation of the Linux kernel ABI on top of the NT kernel. As a result there are many limitations that need to be worked-around or fixed in order to get KDE running well. In the same way that KDE targets Linux, FreeBSD, and other operating systems, I'm working to add WSL to that list as a first-class citizen (maybe revive windows.kde.org?) Now this may never be 100% achievable for a few reasons, but it's an ideal to aim towards.

If you have access to a virtual machine or Real Linux Box(tm) there are better ways to run Neon. But if by choice (or force) you're working in Windows, running a Windows VPS that doesn't support nested virtualization, or have an older system that doesn't support VT, now you have options.



https://github.com/DesktopECHO/kWSL

Constructive feedback is always appreciated!

Cheers,
D.

It's true that with a virtual machine, it works better, I did notice it as well. I am not really sure why do you need to mix the Linux stuff with windows, but whatever. If you want to make it real actually, I would recommend you to use a VPS with low latency such as tapleto-host.net. You will see how huge the difference is, and how it affects the performance in a good way. After you try it once, you will always want to use it, I am telling you from my own experience, the performance it's just too good.

Cool this look great

I'm about to go away on holiday but do get in touch if you'd like me to promote this through KDE neon channels.
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/neon

kde-jriddell wrote:Cool this look great

I'm about to go away on holiday but do get in touch if you'd like me to promote this through KDE neon channels.
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/neon

Hi Jonathan, feel free to spread the word - Thanks!

The installer script has been around since July 2020 and hasn't required too much care and feeding over that time.
WSL1 can't use SQLite write-ahead logging so I patch libkf5activitiesstats1 and kactivitymanagerd
occasionally to keep desktop sessions running well.

Cheers!
D.

Other hacks were needed. SystemD and PolicyKit are no-go in WSL1, dusted-off KDEsu for GUI sudo.

Interestingly enough QtWebEngine is the only web rendering backend that seems rock-solid in WSL1 (once you set it to singe-process.). Chrome/ium and Firefox are crashy, could never get the stability I see in Falkon and it renders perfectly.

I don't know what changed in 5.25, but from 5.22-5.24 I was having intermittent app crashes, possibly in libqt5qml5. Really noticeable in Systemsettings5. But now, 5.25 seems just as solid as 5.21. Something got fixed, don't know what but I'll take it!