Details to install wsl2 on windows without using the windows store
Summary
Windows is finally becoming a good alternative to mac osx for developers. With its built in linux support via wsl2, I decided to purchase a somewhat powerful windows machine for coding and gaming.
My initial setup involved following the instructions provided by microsoft. At this time of writing, there was no easy command and I had to follow instructions.
The end result was wsl setup successfully, but nothing was working. Make sure wsl is set to v2.
wsl --helpAfter realising I couldn’t download the linux distro through the store and I decided to download the package manually.
After installing debian manually which results in the file being saved to an appx file.
Unzipping the appx file, open if and run the *.exe file. In my case I had to open the debian.exe file.
Afterwards, a black window will open and prompt you to fill out details for your linux distro.
Hopefully this article was useful.