"I use Arch, BTW" is a legendary meme among the Linux community that those who've ever dabbled with already be familiar with. But it will soon apply to Windows 11 users, too, or at least, those who use WSL 2.
As reported by the folks over at It's Foss, Arch Linux has confirmed that after discussions with Microsoft, an official distro image will be coming to WSL 2 at some point in the future.
From the official confirmation:
"Microsoft confirmed me their interest in including an official Arch Linux WSL image in their distribution manifest and also agreed on a frequency of one pull request per month to keep it updated [1] (which matches the release frequency of our ISO). With the above and the overall positive feedback I got so far, I think we are *technically* ready to proceed. For good measure, I'd still like to give a bit more time for one more round of thoughts / validations on the current specifications for distributing an official Arch Linux WSL image"
Arch Linux isn't the only big name joining the WSL party, either. It comes after Fedora confirmed plans to offer official WSL images, too, currently targeted for the next version release, 42.
Confirmation is only the first step, of course, the work now begins given that both sides of the equation seem to be happy. Arch Linux for WSL will have its own dedicated repository on GitLab, to keep it separate from the main releases, and an image will be created once a month. Arch Linux will also only support WSL 2, there are no plans to support the older (and nowhere near as good) WSL 1.
I've never used Arch Linux myself, the closest being the Arch-based SteamOS on my Steam Deck and a brief dabble with Manjaro, another distro based on it. But Arch has very dedicated users, and those who also use Windows 11 will no doubts be pleased at the news.
It covers most of the biggest names in Linux being on WSL, too. Arch Linux will be joining the likes of Ubuntu, Debian, Kali, soon to be Fedora, and even names such as Oracle. It's been around for a while now, but I'm happy to see that progress certainly isn't slowing down.
