So, it turns out that WSL2 is actually kind of neat, where it runs a Linux image at almost native speed, and also supports Wayland.

So, what’s the first thing you do in WSL2? Install Emacs of course!

Below is the script I use to install Emacs on an Ubuntu image.

To know what the latest stable version on master is, I look at this Github issue from Jim Myhrberg, who keeps track of those.

# Checkout Emacs
$ git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/emacs.git

# Checkout latest stable version, see note above.
$ git checkout 8febda4

# Vanilla Emacs requirements
$ sudo apt install build-essential autoconf libgtk-3-dev libgnutls28-dev libtiff5-dev libgif-dev libjpeg-dev libpng-dev libxpm-dev libncurses-dev texinfo adwaita-icon-theme-full

# Native compilation requirements
$ sudo apt install libgccjit-11-dev

# Required for Native JSON
$ sudo apt install libjansson4 libjansson-dev

# Required for tree-sitter support
$ sudo apt install libtree-sitter-dev

$ cd emacs
$ export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-11 CXX=/usr/bin/gcc-11
$ ./autogen.sh
$ ./configure --with-pgtk --with-native-compilation --with-tree-sitter --with-json --without-pop
$ make -j$(nproc)
$ sudo make install

And, sometimes when you update the repository, it refuses to build. I usually fix that with running make bootstrap er make distclean.

I like to use Syncthing to sync files between accounts and machines, and now even between my Windows subsystem and Windows itself.

To run Syncthing on WSL I use this script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
SERVICE="syncthing"
USER="petar"
PORT=2103
OPTS="
        --no-browser
        --home=/home/$USER/.config/syncthing
        --gui-address=http://127.0.0.1:$PORT
        --logfile=/home/$USER/.config/syncthing/syncthing.log
"

if ! pgrep -x "$SERVICE" >/dev/null
then
        daemonize /usr/bin/syncthing serve "$OPTS"
fi

Make sure to change your username and to make the port unique, if you run multiple Syncthings on your machine.