Launch GUI Application in WSL without XServer
Nowadays, the best option is to use a GUI in WSL is to install X Window software and connect to the Linux in WSL.
- You can install X Window software such as VcXsrv or MobaXterm
- There are many tutorials in the Internet using the above VcXsrv and MobaXterm.
Note that the linux kernel in the WSL is not the same kernel you use in a bare-metal installation. The NVIDIA drivers do not work in WSL. If you are using Chrome or some window manager, you must configure them to run without using GPUs or Graphical acceleration.
- You may look at the answers in What's the easiest way to run GUI apps on WSL as of 2018?.
- You may run Chrome with the
--disable-gpucommand line option. - You may configure the X to disable the GPU extensions.
- You may run the Gnome Session using the
--disable-acceleration-check.
Recently, some developers created LoWe - Linux on Windows extender. It is able to display the WSL UI without a third party X Window. It exports a Linux framebuffer and displays the UI in a Window. However, even using this option you cannot use the GPU neither.
- Lowe is an experimental implementation and it is not recommended for production.
You don't need putty on local computer, because you have bash window. You need X server (Xming...) to launch gedit. Code Writer fails to launch at this moment. Graphics not supported on WSL. I use firefox with success.