LxRunOffline

A full-featured utility for managing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Donation

It would be greatly appreciated if you could make a donation to support development of this project.

Note: It's extremely difficult to withdraw from PayPal balance for a Chinese citizen like me, so if you want to donate 100$ or more, please either use Alipay or contact me via email for other donation options.

PayPal

Alipay

Features

• Install any Linux distro to any directory on your computer.
• Move an existing installation to another directory.
• Duplicate(copy) an existing installation.
• Register an existing installation directory. This enables you to install to a USB stick and use it on different computers.
• Run arbitrary Linux commands in a specified installation.
• Configure default user, environment variables and various flags.
• Export configuration to an XML file and import from the file.
• Export an installation to a tar file.

Install

You can install via Chocolatey choco install lxrunoffline, Scoop scoop bucket add extras, scoop install lxrunoffline, or download the binaries directly:

• Latest releases: https://github.com/DDoSolitary/LxRunOffline/releases
• Development builds: https://dl.bintray.com/ddosolitary/dev-releases/LxRunOffline/

Usage

See the Wiki to download tar files for different distros, which are used by the LxRunOffline install command.

Run LxRunOffline for available actions and run LxRunOffline <action-name> for available arguments/flags.

Build

This project uses CMake as its build system. MinGW GCC and Visual C++ compilers are supported.

Visual C++

1. Install Visual Studio 2019, latest Windows SDK, CMake and vcpkg.

2. Install dependencies.

vcpkg install --triplet x64-windows-static libarchive boost-program-options boost-format tinyxml2

3. Open "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt" from Start Menu and build.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. \
    -G "NMake Makefiles" \
    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path-to-vcpkg-dir>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake \
    -DVCPKG_TARGET_TRIPLET=x64-windows-static
nmake

MinGW

1. Install MSYS2.

2. Open the "MSYS2 MinGW 64-bit" shell from Start menu, and install dependencies.

pacman -Sy --needed --noconfirm base-devel git mingw-w64-x86_64-{toolchain,cmake,libarchive,boost,tinyxml2}

3. Build.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -G "MSYS Makefiles"
make

Notes

• Other CMake generators like Visual Studio and Ninja may also work, but they're neither tested nor officially supported by this project.
• Static linking is used by default. However, you can define -DLXRUNOFFLINE_STATIC=OFF to switch to dynamic linking. If you're building with Visual C++, you also need to change vcpkg's triplet to x64-windows when installing dependencies and invoking CMake.
• The build script in CI configuration can be used as an example of how to build this project.

Compatibility

• v1.x: Only Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (v1709) or earlier.
• v2.x: Only Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (v1709) or later.
• v3.x: Only Windows 10 April 2018 Update (v1803) or later.

It is strongly recommended to install the April 2018 Update or later and use v3.x releases.