LSW - running Windows, the linux way in docker (on linux).

Linux (Windows) subsystem for Windows (for Linux)

Also, am I the only person who thinks that a better name (for the competing product, WSL) would be Linux subsystem for Windows?

For the full story and setup instructions come to my blog

Examples

FROM windows:10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021

RUN Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force \
    ; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072 \
    ; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))

# <reboot takes place somewhere in here>

RUN choco install -y visualstudio2022community \
    && choco install -y visualstudio2022-workload-nativedesktop \
    && choco install -y git \
    && choco install -y flutter

or to get straight to the docker run:

$ uname -s -r
Linux 6.1.68
$ docker run --device=/dev/kvm --rm -it windows:10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021 systeminfo
Host Name:                 DESKTOP-GLPCL5M
OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC
OS Version:                10.0.19044 N/A Build 19044
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Standalone Workstation
OS Build Type:             Multiprocessor Free
{...}

Images

If you don't want to spend hours preparing the image and hours on building the image, I get it - you can use one of the following images that I've built. Note that these are unactivated copies of windows - you need to activate them on your own.

To download the torrent you need a functional I2P-capable bittorrent client. Easiest way to download them is to download Java I2P client or to use I2PSnark with i2pd. Others options are also available but are not tested by me - therefore are not endorsed.

Name	Base	Dockerfile	I2P Torrent
windows:10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021-flutter	windows:10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021	flutter/Dockerfile.10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021	I2P magnet
windows:10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021	manual	manual	I2P magnet

To import the given docker image run

$ zcat windows-10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021.tar.gz | docker load

NOTE: manual was build manually using these instructions and following files (last one being resulting, manually configured disk image): 2463b19beac328290e6a8adcedb7533a windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_257ad90f.iso e5d3f689e99fb56add9705baf408d34c virtio-win-0.1.240.iso 98e6bdb99a6fce96612d6425e087950e ../windows10iot_enterprise_ltsc2021.img

As you may notice in the $ docker history output, there is.. no history. Reason for that is the fact that during my work with images docker had the tendency to slow down with each layer, for this reason each flavor copies everything onto scratch image after shrinking the disk image (which also increases size if we take layers into account):

RUN '..disk-optimize'

FROM scratch
COPY --from=stage00 / /

ENV QEMU_KVM_FLAGS=""
ENV QEMU_RAM_LIMIT=4G
ENV FORWARD_PORTS="8080"

ENTRYPOINT [ "/entrypoint.sh" ]
SHELL [ "/entrypoint.sh" ]

IMAGE	CREATED	CREATED BY	SIZE	COMMENT
61102a4c0185	4 hours ago	SHELL [/entrypoint.sh]	0B	buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>	4 hours ago	ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]	0B	buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>	4 hours ago	ENV FORWARD_PORTS=8080	0B	buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>	4 hours ago	ENV QEMU_RAM_LIMIT=4G	0B	buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>	4 hours ago	ENV QEMU_KVM_FLAGS=	0B	buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>	4 hours ago	COPY / / # buildkit	9.94GB	buildkit.dockerfile.v0

Note that this indeed raises some security concerns about the reproducibility and stuff.. but I'm not going to address them, at least not now. First I'll prepare a dockerfile that is capable of building windows from scratch inside of docker (without the need of manually enabling ssh and performing installation).