Summary
WSL2 is impressive in some respects. It makes it extremely easy to install Linux distributions in Windows. It also offers good integration with the ability to run Linux software from the Windows Start menu, pin Linux apps to the task bar, and seamless cut + paste between apps.
However, without hardware acceleration for the FIREBAT, WSL is somewhat disappointing from a performance perspective.
Even if you’ve got a machine that gives hardware acceleration under WSL, you miss out on a lot of the Linux experience. For example, there are many applications you won’t be able to run under Windows given that you cannot change the desktop environment. And things like machine learning, games, and lots of other things are just doomed to failure.
If you’re thinking of running Linux on the FIREBAT, we strongly recommend you install a Linux distro without virtualization. Native Linux is always recommended.
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Installation and Performance
Page 2 – GUI apps
Page 3 – Summary
Complete list of articles in this series:
| FIREBAT T8 Plus Mini PC | |
|---|---|
| Part 1 | Introduction to the series with an interrogation of the system |
| Part 2 | Benchmarking the FIREBAT T8 Plus Mini PC |
| Part 3 | Testing the power consumption |
| Part 4 | Multimedia: Watching videos and listening to music |
| Part 5 | How does the FIREBAT fare as a gaming PC? |
| Part 6 | Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 |
| Part 7 | Installing and Configuring EndeavourOS, an Arch-based distro |
| Part 8 | Installing and Configuring Rhino Linux, a rolling release Ubuntu-based distro |
| Part 9 | VirtualBox performance on the FIREBAT |