In a surprise move, two SUSE Linux environments—Linux Enterprise Server 12 and openSUSE Leap 42—are now available for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) in newer Windows 10 Insider Preview builds.

As you may recall, WSL is a relatively new subsystem for Windows 10 that allows developers and other power users to run native Linux utilities on top of 64-bit versions of Microsoft’s desktop OS. The software giant first announced WSL at Build 2016, and the technology was released in beta form as part of the Windows 10 Anniversary Update in mid-2016, and then in shipping form in the Creators Update in March 2017. During this time, only Ubuntu Linux has been supported in WSL, but Microsoft noted it was open to adding other distributions.

At Build 2017 last month, Microsoft revealed that more Linux environments, from SUSE and RedHat, would be made available this year in the Fall Creators Update and that, going forward, these environments would be distributed through the Windows Store.

But thanks to a tweet from MohammadMSFT, I can see now that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 and openSUSE Leap 42 are now available in the Windows Store for those running Windows 10 Insider Preview build 16190 or newer.

Here are the descriptions.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a world-class, secure open source server operating system, built to power physical, virtual and cloud-based mission-critical workloads. To register your free, 1-year developer subscription of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server […] Designed for mixed IT environments, it offers best-of-breed performance with reduced risk of technological obsolescence or vendor lock-in. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 is a modular, general-purpose operating system and runs on all major processor architectures. It is optimized to run on leading hypervisors and supports an unlimited number of virtual machine guests per physical system with single subscription, making it the perfect guest for virtual and cloud computing.

SUSE openSUSE Leap 42. The openSUSE distribution is a stable, easy to use and complete multi-purpose Linux distribution. It is aimed towards users and developers working on the desktop or server. It is great for beginners, experienced users and ultra geeks alike, in short, it is perfect for everybody! The latest release, openSUSE Leap 42.2, features new and massively improved versions of all useful server and desktop applications. It comes with more than 1,000 open source applications. openSUSE is also the base for SUSE’s award-winning SUSE Linux Enterprise products. That’s right. After basing openSUSE Leap 42.1 on SLE (SUSE Linux Enterprise), Leap 42.2 gets even more source code from the release of SLE 12 Service Pack 2. New technologies such as NVDIMM, OmniPATH, Data Plane Development Kit with openVSwitch are backported for the release. XEN no longer requires its own kernel and is supported by the default kernel. Along with the shared SLE codebase, openSUSE Leap 42.2 gets packages, maintenance and bug fixes from the openSUSE community and SUSE engineers. The 42 series of Leap achieves at a minimum 36 months of maintenance and security updates starting from 42.1.

The other WSL distributions—Ubuntu and RedHat Fedora—do not appear to be available in the Store. But you can find the two SUSE environments by using the links above or by launching the Store and searching for SUSE.

Tagged with Linux, Windows Subsystem for Linux