Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is set to become an official Linux distribution for Microsoft’s Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a Windows feature that allows users to run Linux environments on Windows without a separate virtual machine.
The move was announced by Red Hat and Microsoft on November 19. While users already can run any Linux distro via WSL, being an official distro will make it easier for WSL users to discover and install RHEL, according to Microsoft. Red Hat will deliver a Red Hat Enterprise Linux distro image for WSL in coming months. It will be shipped with a new .tar-based WSL distro architecture designed to improve the way WSL distros are packaged and installed.
Red Hat touted benefits of the arrangement for hybrid cloud deployments. While Red Hat sees hybrid cloud technology stacks starting with Linux, many enterprise IT organization organizations and developer teams have standardized on Windows environments, Red Hat’s Ron Pacheco, senior director of the RHEL ecosystem, said. “For developers who need to build Linux apps on a Windows system but then deploy on a RHEL environment, being able to use the same RHEL via WSL as they would for production can be a significant time- and resource-saver,” Pacheco said.