How one can set the default person for a WSL distro that has been manually put in with wsl –import

I’ve blogged earlier than on methods to simply transfer WSL distributions between Home windows 10 machines with import and export. I not too long ago did a full contemporary set up of Home windows 11 and wished to convey my current extremely personalized Ubuntu set up together with me.

You possibly can tar up (zip up) the user-mode elements of your WSL2 distributions like this:

wsl --export Ubuntu-20.04 c:TempUbuntuBackup.tar

The half after –export is the distribution identify which you could see from operating wsl --list -v. The final argument is a full path and filename for the archive you need created.

Subsequent, on the machine you have moved to, you may do the reverse. Discover that I’ve modified the Distro identify right here, and you’ll if you would like. Bear in mind additionally which you could have as many Linux Distros put in as you need.

wsl --import Ubuntu c:Linux c:TempUbuntuBackup.tar

The Linux file system is saved in a VHDX (digital onerous drive), often deep in AppData/Native/YadaYada, however this import is a chance for me to retailer it in C:Linux which may even make it simpler to do upkeep on like Compact-VHD which shrinks your WSL2 disks.

This is the bizarre half. While you import a WSL2 distro manually, operating that distro on the brand new machine will find yourself logging you in as root. It is forgotten that I am “scott.”

There’s a whole lot of methods to repair this that contain the registry or passing in arguments to wsl, however I simply need it to work after I run “wsl” or “wsl -d distroname.”

Run your distro, after which edit /and so on/wsl.conf and add a [user] part like this:

[user]
default=scott

That is the best approach to set your WSL distro’s default person for imported tars as a result of it is saved contained in the Linux file system and the setting will stick round while you export/import in a while.

Hope this helps!

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About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, advisor, father, diabetic, and Microsoft worker. He’s a failed stand-up comedian, a cornrower, and a e-book creator.

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