Windows 10 - WSL installation

With Windows 10 (build 16215 or later), Microsoft introduced Windows subsystem for linux (WSL). This is in effect a full Linux distribution, which runs inside windows. Linux commands are translated into windows commands and this comes without the overhead of a Virtual Machine. Officially, Microsoft only supports command-line functions but in practice, as a full Linux distribution is provided, it is possible to run this with X-forwarding in order to use graphical Linux applications. As a result the Linux version of CCPN Analysis 2.4 can be run under WSL. In my experience this gives good performance.

To set this up:

1) Activate windows subsystem for Linux:

See this link for details: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10

Note: -The first step in this link uses windows powershell. If you're not sure what this is/how to use it, this can also be achieved by doing the following:

Open Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Feature on or off -> Check Windows Subsystem for Linux

-A variety of Linux distributions are now available in the Windows store. The Ubuntu distribution seems to work well.

2) Install an X-server 

To run GUI applications install an X-server e.g. X-ming, or MobaXterm, which provides a nice terminal environment and has a built in X-server.

https://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

http://www.straightrunning.com/XmingNotes/

3) Set the display variable

The display variable needs to be set to allow X-forwarding. On the command line type:

export DISPLAY=:0

For ease of use, you may wish to set this in your .bashrc file, then it will be set every time you open a WSL terminal

See for more description:

https://www.howtogeek.com/261575/how-to-run-graphical-linux-desktop-applications-from-windows-10s-bash-shell/

https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-wsl-and-mobaxterm-to-create-a-linux-dev-environment-on-windows

4) Test any Linux GUI

Try opening any graphical Linux application e.g. gedit from the WSL command line, just as you would on a normal Linux desktop. 

5) Install Analysis

Install CCPN Analysis 2.4, following the Linux installation instructions. Ensure you use the 64-bit version.

Notes:

• WSL creates a separate area of the hard disk for Linux files. Under WSL, these will appear under /home/$USER/

• Windows files can be found under /mnt/c/Users/$USER/Documents

  • In principle WSL can view files under the Windows part of the filesystem. I haven't tested what happens if you save an Analysis project here and then run via WSL - I would not recommend this! I also would not recommend interchanging between the WSL Analysis version and the Windows install - again I haven't tested this and it could lead to some unexpected effects.

• Currently I only have this working for Analysis 2.4. There are some issues with the OpenGL libraries for Version 3.0, which I haven't yet solved.

  • WSL only supports 64-bit libraries. A number of other Linux-based NMR software can be run on WSL, but for example NMRDraw won't work as this requires 32-bit libraries. Other software like plot2 and NMRPipe does work.

• Always keep an external back-up of your Analysis projects in case of disaster!