Support for WSL: Spaces in cmd path, translate pathname from WSL2 to Windows

[bmo]

Would be great to be able to use this when running Ubuntu on Windows using WSL.

When run using the Windows Subsystem for Linux, the default browser may actually be a Windows app, like chrome. The file://// argument may also need to be translated to the Windows pathname.

The path to the exe ($BROWSER) could have spaces in it, so it's probably good to pass it in quotes. An example of the real path to BROWSER on my machine is

/mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe

(I believe it's possible for paths on osx to have spaces, too.)

wslpath -w command (exists on Linux distros running on WSL) translates file paths path from WSL to Windows, which is necessary if the BROWSER being invoked is a Windows application.

[rubyFeedback]

Can that work? E. g. to call from within WSL?

I am thinking a bit about WSL1 too. I have not much experience with WSL2 but I suppose it should be possible; I did not try that on windows. Does the above work on windows? I mean the /mnt/ path. (I suppose it should work but I don't know if you can spawn external commands that way on both WSL1 WSL2; if it is just meant for WSL2 then perhaps the title should be changed.)

[bmo]

yes, I use this on one of my development machines all of the time, for example to have Letter Opener gem start a web browser to display an email message.

[bmo]

I haven't put it into a PR (haven't written the tests), however this gets used every day for me:

bmo@8c3eab8

[copiousfreetime]

@snuggs - take look

[snuggs]

@copiousfreetime now have a windows system. Will install WSL and update when finished doing a touch of (personal) research. @bmo @rubyFeedback this is my first time with WSL installed. (And haven't used Windows in a few years). Is there any value in installing WSL 1, then upgrading to 2? Or at this date just go for v2?

Thanks in advance for your patience.

[bmo]

I believe I went straight to WSL2. I am not near my windows machine until next week.

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On Apr 17, 2022, at 3:25 PM, Ahmid ***@***.***> wrote:  @copiousfreetime now have a windows system. Will install WSL and update when finished doing a touch of (personal) research. @bmo @rubyFeedback this is my first time with WSL installed. (And haven't used Windows in a few years). Is there any value in installing WSL 1, then upgrading to 2? Or at this date just go for v2? Thanks in advance for your patience. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you were mentioned.