Win10's Linux Subsystem Can Also Run Graphical Programs

Preface

I previously wrote an article about installing the Linux subsystem on Win10. Although the Linux subsystem is both practical and convenient, some of you might find having only a command line rather boring, so today I'll share a method for running graphical programs. After trying it out, the results are pretty good. This article will walk you through installing and running Gimp in Win10's subsystem step by step (PS: Gimp is the Photoshop of Linux, and it's quite powerful), as well as some other Linux graphical software.

Preparations

The Linux subsystem is a must, of course, no need to say more. If you need a tutorial, you can check out the article I posted earlier on my blog. Here I'm using the Ubuntu subsystem.

And then! You also need a piece of software. Xming, let's just call it Xiao Ming = =. You need this software to run Linux graphical programs on Windows.

Xming is an open-source X-Windows terminal emulator (X server) that runs on Microsoft Windows computers. Xming allows Windows machines to display graphical Linux programs executed on a remote Linux server Official website: sourceforge.net/projects/xming.

Installing XMing

After downloading, this thing looks like this:

Open it and install; just keep clicking Next.

Launching XMing

In the Start menu under recently installed apps, you can see XMing and XLaunch.

Open XLaunch. Select how Xming should display the windows of Linux graphical programs (multiple windows, single window, fullscreen, or a single window without a title bar), then click the Next button;

Leave this option unchanged, click the Next button;

Leave this option unchanged, click the Next button;

Click the Finish button;

Now the XMing configuration is complete. Next we'll install graphical programs in the Linux subsystem.

Installing Gimp

First, start the Linux subsystem bash: Press Win+R, open the Run window, type bash, and press Enter.

First, update the software repositories:

sudo apt update

Whoa, so much software needs upgrading. Let's run sudo apt upgrade first then. After the upgrade is done, let's start installing Gimp.

sudo apt install gimp

Here it asks if you want to continue; we press y to continue. Seems like Gimp is pretty big. No worries though, I currently have 100m internet.

OK~ Now the download is done, and a series of installation operations are starting. It's all automatic, just sit back and watch the show. This process feels even slower than the download. = =

Launching Gimp

After a long wait, it's finally installed. Hehe, Linux is still faster than Windows; if I were installing Photoshop it would definitely take longer than this.

Now we can finally run Gimp, but! There's one thing to do first:

DISPLAY=:0 gimp

If you can run Gimp without typing the command above, I'll admit I lost.

Successfully launched Gimp!

Other Linux Graphical Tools

I feel like other software either depends on Gnome or the KDE environment. The software itself isn't that big, but adding these two desktop environments makes it huge. My 120G hard drive is shivering in fear = =. So I thought of this super lightweight graphical software

Leaf Pad

(Image from the internet; after installing you can see how it looks in Windows.)

First, install it via apt as usual

sudo apt install leafpad

Then type leafpad to run it. Huh? What's going on

Remember what I did when running Gimp earlier? You have to prepend DISPLAY=:0! That is, you need to type: DISPLAY=:0 leafpad

Let's try again. There we go, success.

Wrapping Up

Due to space constraints, I'll just introduce these two pieces of software. Other software is pretty much the same; interested readers can try installing them yourselves. But I think these Linux programs look pretty ugly when run on Windows. They look better in a Linux desktop environment with a nicer GTK theme. Running Linux graphical programs in the subsystem is indeed pretty fun, though it's limited to just being fun. As for practical use = =. Can't think of any = =.

About

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