My Windows 10 Setup & Dotfiles

Goals of this setup

• Working on Windows 10
• Having a visually nice terminal (Windows Terminal)
• zsh as my main shell
• Using Docker and Docker Compose directly from zsh
• Using IntelliJ IDEA directly from WSL 2

What's in this setup?

• Host: Windows 10 2004+
  • Ubuntu via WSL 2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
  • Docker Desktop
• Terminal: Windows Terminal
• Shell: zsh
  • git
  • docker (works with Docker Desktop)
  • docker-compose (works with Docker Desktop)
• Node.js (using Volta)
  • node
  • npm
  • yarn
• IDE: IntelliJ IDEA, under WSL 2, used on Windows via VcXsrv
• WSL Bridge: allow exposing WSL 2 ports on the network

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Setup WSL 2

• Enable WSL 2 and update the linux kernel (Source)

# In PowerShell as Administrator

# Enable WSL and VirtualMachinePlatform features
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

# Download and install the Linux kernel update package
$wslUpdateInstallerUrl = "https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi"
$downloadFolderPath = (New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application).NameSpace('shell:Downloads').Self.Path
$wslUpdateInstallerFilePath = "$downloadFolderPath/wsl_update_x64.msi"
$wc = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$wc.DownloadFile($wslUpdateInstallerUrl, $wslUpdateInstallerFilePath)
Start-Process -Filepath "$wslUpdateInstallerFilePath"

# Set WSL default version to 2
wsl --set-default-version 2

• Install Ubuntu from Microsoft Store

Install common dependencies

#!/bin/bash

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
    apt-transport-https \
    ca-certificates \
    curl \
    gnupg-agent \
    software-properties-common \
    git \
    make \
    tig \
    zsh

GPG key

If you already have a GPG key, restore it. If you did not have one, you can create one.

Restore

• On old system, create a backup of a GPG key
  • gpg --list-secret-keys
  • gpg --export-secret-keys {{KEY_ID}} > /tmp/private.key
• On new system, import the key:
  • gpg --import /tmp/private.key
• Delete the /tmp/private.key on both side

Create

• gpg --full-generate-key

Read GitHub documentation about generating a new GPG key for more details.

Setup Git

#!/bin/bash

# Set username and email for next commands
email="contact@alex-d.fr"
username="Alex-D"
gpgkeyid="8FA78E6580B1222A"

# Configure Git
git config --global user.email "${email}"
git config --global user.name "${username}"
git config --global user.signingkey "${gpgkeyid}"
git config --global commit.gpgsign true
git config --global core.pager /usr/bin/less
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore

# Generate a new SSH key
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "${email}"

# Start ssh-agent and add the key to it
eval $(ssh-agent -s)
ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

# Display the public key ready to be copy pasted to GitHub
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

• Add the generated key to GitHub

Setup zsh

#!/bin/zsh

# Clone the dotfiles repository
mkdir -p ~/dev/dotfiles
git clone git@github.com:Alex-D/dotfiles.git ~/dev/dotfiles

# Install Antibody and generate .zsh_plugins.zsh
curl -sfL git.io/antibody | sudo sh -s - -b /usr/local/bin
antibody bundle < ~/dev/dotfiles/zsh_plugins > ~/.zsh_plugins.zsh

# Link custom dotfiles
ln -sf ~/dev/dotfiles/.aliases.zsh ~/.aliases.zsh
ln -sf ~/dev/dotfiles/.p10k.zsh ~/.p10k.zsh
ln -sf ~/dev/dotfiles/.zshrc ~/.zshrc
ln -sf ~/dev/dotfiles/.gitignore ~/.gitignore

# Create .screen folder used by .zshrc
mkdir ~/.screen && chmod 700 ~/.screen

# Change default shell to zsh
chsh -s $(which zsh)

Docker

Install Docker Desktop

• Install Docker Desktop
• Make sure that the "Use the WSL 2 based engine" option is checked in Docker Desktop settings

Setup Docker CLI

#!/bin/zsh

# Add Docker to sources.list
curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
versionCodename=$(cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION_CODENAME | cut -d= -f2)
sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(versionCodename) stable"

# Install tools
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
    docker-ce

# Add user to docker group
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Node.js

#!/bin/zsh

# Install Volta
mkdir -p $VOLTA_HOME
curl https://get.volta.sh | bash -s -- --skip-setup

# Install node and package managers
volta install node npm yarn

IntelliJ IDEA

I run IntelliJ IDEA in WSL 2, and get its GUI on Windows via X Server (VcXsrv).

Setup VcXsrv

• Install VcXsrv (XLaunch)

windowsUserProfile=/mnt/c/Users/$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERNAME%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d '\r')

# Run VcXsrv at startup
cp ~/dev/dotfiles/config.xlaunch "${windowsUserProfile}/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/Start Menu/Programs/Startup"

Install IntelliJ IDEA

#!/bin/zsh

# Install IDEA dependencies
sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
    fontconfig \
    libxss1 \
    libnss3 \
    libatk1.0-0 \
    libatk-bridge2.0-0 \
    libgbm1 \
    libpangocairo-1.0-0 \
    libcups2

# Create install folder
sudo mkdir /opt/idea

# Allow your user to run IDEA updates from GUI
sudo chown $UID:$UID /opt/idea

# Download IntelliJ IDEA
curl -L "https://download.jetbrains.com/product?code=IIU&latest&distribution=linux" | tar vxz -C /opt/idea --strip 1

Setup Windows Terminal

• Download and install JetBrains Mono
• Install Windows Terminal

#!/bin/zsh

windowsUserProfile=/mnt/c/Users/$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERNAME%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d '\r')

# Copy Windows Terminal settings
cp ~/dev/dotfiles/terminal-settings.json ${windowsUserProfile}/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalState/settings.json

WSL Bridge

When a port is listening from WSL 2, it cannot be reached. You need to create port proxies for each port you want to use. To avoid doing than manually each time I start my computer, I've made the wslb alias that will run the wsl2bridge.ps1 script in an admin Powershell.

#!/bin/zsh

windowsUserProfile=/mnt/c/Users/$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERNAME%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d '\r')

# Get the hacky network bridge script
cp ~/dev/dotfiles/wsl2-bridge.ps1 ${windowsUserProfile}/wsl2-bridge.ps1

In order to allow wsl2-bridge.ps1 script to run, you need to update your PowerShell execution policy.

# In PowerShell as Administrator

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
PowerShell -File $env:USERPROFILE\\wsl2-bridge.ps1

Then, when port forwarding does not work between WSL 2 and Windows, run wslb from zsh:

#!/bin/zsh

wslb

Note: This is a custom alias. See .aliases.zsh for more details

Limit WSL 2 RAM consumption

#!/bin/zsh

windowsUserProfile=/mnt/c/Users/$(cmd.exe /c "echo %USERNAME%" 2>/dev/null | tr -d '\r')

# Avoid too much RAM consumption
cp ~/dev/dotfiles/.wslconfig ${windowsUserProfile}/.wslconfig

Note: You can adjust the RAM amount in .wslconfig file. Personally, I set it to 8 GB.