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Setup X11 for Window Sub System Linux 2 for GUI

Linux Distro | Ubuntu | X11 | WSL | Development | Windows 11/10

I've never been a Graphical User Interface (GUI) guy with Linux but there is sometimes a need. Of course, if you are working with Windows and you like Linux distros as much as I do then you probably utilize Windows Subsystem Linux (WSL). So the goal of this article is to make it very simplistic on setting up X11 forwarding between WSL2 and the X11 Server. Let’s begin.

The first issue that needs to be resolved is the ssh server. I did not know the ssh server setup by default does not have everything on it. So let's remove it and then re-add it.

Remove the openssh server

You can do this by running the following:

sudo apt-get remove  openssh-server

Install the openssh server

You can do this by running:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Restart SSH

Now run a full restart of the openssh server and its services by running:

sudo service ssh --full-restart

Download the Windows X Server