Microsoft first announced Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 / WSL 2 during Microsoft Build last year and it was rolled out to the stable version earlier this year with the Windows 10 May 2020 update (version 2004). The update introduced a full Linux kernel in the stable Windows 10 branch and the company also made WSL 2 updatable via Windows Update, which means users no longer have to rely on the command line option to update the kernel. Now Microsoft is bringing WSL 2 support to older versions of Windows 10.
According to a recent post on the Windows Command Line blog, WSL 2 support makes its way to Windows 10 versions 1903 and 1909 via an update. However, the backport will only be available for x64 systems, and users running an ARM64 version will need to upgrade to Windows 10 version 2004 to access WSL 2.
If you are one of the many users who have Windows 10 version 1903 or 1909, you can switch to the Update & Security section in the Windows settings and click Check for updates to see if you have the update the war. As the blog post explains, you can check if you got the backport by checking the lesser build number of your current Windows 10 build.
To do this, right-click on the start menu, click ‘Run’, type ‘winver’ and then click enter. On the next page you can check your OS Build number. If your small build number (numbers that appear after the ‘.’ In the OS Build number) is 1049 or higher on Windows builds 18362 or 18363, then you have the backport and thus WSL 2 support.
After verifying that you have received the backport, you can then follow the instructions given in this post to install WSL, or simply update to use WSL 2.. With WSL 2 support, you can compile LineageOS custom ROMs on your Windows 10. If you are interested in trying this out, you can follow this guide to get started.
Source: Windows Command Line
Thanks to XDA Senior Member Some_Random_Username for the tip!
