Creating a WSL 2 Distro from Scratch

This article will cover how to set up a WSL 2 Distro using Docker. So let's begin. The docker container that we will be creating is to be able to run Podman on a windows machine. We will then convert this Distro into a usable WSL on the window.

Step 1. Creating the Docker Container. We will first build the docker container by scripting a Dockerfile.

Create a new directory

mkdir centos-server-podman
cd centos-server-podman
touch Dockerfile

Step 2. Open the “Dockerfile” and script the following:

FROM centos:8
RUN yum update -y
RUN yum install -y nano dnf-plugins-core
RUN dnf config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools -y
RUN dnf -y update
RUN dnf module list | grep container-tools
RUN dnf install -y @container-tools --skip-broken
RUN podman version
RUN yum install -y pinentry wget
RUN curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/`curl -s https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/stable.txt`/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl
RUN chmod +x ./kubectl