Using Jupyter with Windows Subsystem for Linux

Update:
For some, the original answer below should still work.
For others, who get an additional error related to a tcgetpgrp failed: Not a tty message, there is no real fix at the moment. (See this issue on GitHub)
Therefore, you need to use jupyter notebook --no-browser or set c.NotebookApp.open_browser = False in the config file $HOME/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py.

Original answer:
I had the problem that Jupyter didn't find a file (complete error message in German):

Start : Dieser Befehl kann aufgrund des folgenden Fehlers nicht ausgeführt werden: Das System kann die angegebene
Datei nicht finden.
In Zeile:1 Zeichen:1
+ Start "file:///home/nico/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/nbserver-1164-o ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Start-Process], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperationException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartProcessCommand

Jupyter did work, but it didn't open my browser, when I typed jupyter notebook.

I found a very simple solution to this:

  1. Create the Jupyter Config file:
jupyter notebook --generate-config

or

touch $HOME/.jupyter/jupyter_notebook_config.py
  1. Now add the following line to the config file (by using nano or any other text editor):
c.NotebookApp.use_redirect_file = False

Now, my WSL uses the wslview command to open the default browser in Windows. (I think)

If wslview . does nothing, you might need to manually install wslu.

Side note:
This solution also works for jupyter lab, but you have to use c.LabApp.use_redirect_file = False in $HOME/.jupyter/jupyter_lab_config.py.
Or even better c.ServerApp.use_redirect_file = False in $HOME/.jupyter/jupyter_server_config.py.


Assign different port number manually when you start the notebook. For example:

jupyter notebook --port=8889


try:

jupyter notebook --no-browser

I had similar issue with browser, I got

No web browser found: could not locate runnable browser.

I installed WSLU https://github.com/wslutilities/wslu. Then I got

Start : This command cannot be run due to the error: The system cannot find the file specified.
At line:1 char:1
+ Start --h
+ ~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Start-Process], InvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperationException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartProcessCommand

jupyter-notebook does not supply url as a parameter to wlsview. It passes a path with file to browser. eg

file:///home/myhome/.local/share/jupyter/runtime/nbserver-5058-open.html

with actual url

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;url=http://localhost:8888/tree?token=19b5f1fefb13f5fc315b05991175d1f8cb5ada9baaca6804" />
    <title>Opening Jupyter Notebook</title>
</head>
<body>

<p>
    This page should redirect you to Jupyter Notebook. If it doesn't,
    <a href="http://localhost:8888/tree?token=19b5f1fefb13f5fc315b05991175d1f8cb5ada9baaca6804">click here to go to Jupyter</a>.
</p>

</body>
</html>

Create a file jupyter-notebook-browser with a content to extract actual url

#!/bin/bash
file=$(echo "$1" | sed 's/file:\/\///')
url=$(grep -oP 'href="\K([^"]*localhost[^"]+)' "$file")
wslview "$url"

then run jupyter-notebook --browser=jupyter-notebook-browser

or define BROWSER variable and run

export BROWSER="jupyter-notebook-browser"
jupyter-notebook

Tags:

Python

Jupyter Notebook

Windows Subsystem For Linux

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