Systemd Integration Now Enabled for WSL2 Linux Distributions by Microsoft

Linux distros running on Windows in a WSL2 virtual machine now can use the systemd init system.

This week Microsoft and Canonical jointly announced the news that the latest build of Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (version 0.67.6 and higher) has been modified to support systemd. Canonical''s blog post has some technical detail, and also takes the opportunity to promote its LXD container thingamajig.

Microsoft''s corresponding announcement is not so technical – and the YouTube demo video even less so – but it does mention that there have been multiple third-party workarounds that have achieved the same thing.