Canonical releases Ubuntu to Windows Store

Canonical has put Ubuntu on the Windows Store so Windows 10 Insiders can download and install the distro from Microsoft’s app store. It is a version that is aimed at the use of Bash within Windows 10.

It concerns Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, according to the listing on the Microsoft site. Ubuntu in Windows 10 is not a full desktop environment as a standalone installation. Users can use the commandline interface within Ubuntu to use Bash and SSH within Windows 10, among other things.

To get Ubuntu up and running, users must select the option to use the Windows Subsystem for Linux within the old Control Panel in the submenu Turn Windows Features On or Off, and Ubuntu will work after a reboot. However, membership of the Insiders program is required.

Microsoft and Canonical have been working together for some time and enabled the functionality ‘Bash on Ubuntu on Windows’ with the Anniversary Update of Windows 10 last year. This runs on the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Microsoft is working on bringing Suse and Fedora to that virtualized environment as well, so developers can run their Linux and Windows tools side by side.