Running Ubuntu Desktop in WSL2

After installing the package in Step 3, you will notice additional services are added to Ubuntu/WSL2. You can check the available Ubuntu services by executing the following command.

service --status-all

Not all newly added services need to be started in order to use Ubuntu desktop. However, we recommend starting at least network-manager service. While running your Linux GUI apps, check their error/warning messages and see if you need to start additional services.

For automatically starting services, you can use the login script mentioned in Step 2; ~/.bash_sysinit. For example, in order to start network-manager service, add the following line after starting dbus service.

sudo service network-manager start

You should also consider starting at-spi-bus-launcher. It starts an accessibility bus that makes use of D-Bus. Without this daemon you may get a 'Couldn't connect to accessibility bus...' warning when you start modern Linux GUI apps.

/usr/libexec/at-spi-bus-launcher --launch-immediately &

If you don't want to start this daemon and suppress the waring message, you can export NO_AT_BRIDGE=1 and disable using the accessibility bus altogether.

export NO_AT_BRIDGE=1

...
export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
if [ ! -d "$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" ]; then
{
    sudo_autopasswd

    # Create user runtime directories
    sudo mkdir $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR && sudo chmod 700 $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR && sudo chown $(id -un):$(id -gn) $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR

    # System D-Bus
    sudo service dbus start

    # --------------------
    # Start additional services as they are needed.
    # We recommend adding commands that require 'sudo' here. For other
    # regular background processes, you should add them below where a
    # session 'dbus-daemon' is started.
    # --------------------

    # Network Manager
    sudo service network-manager start

    sudo_resetpasswd
}
fi

set_session_dbus()
{
    local bus_file_path="$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/bus"

    export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=$bus_file_path
    if [ ! -e "$bus_file_path" ]; then
    {
        /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --session --address=$DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS --nofork --nopidfile --syslog-only &

        # --------------------
        # More background processes can be added here.
        # For 'sudo' requiring commands, you should add them above
        # where the 'dbus' service is started.
        # --------------------

        # Accessibility bus
        /usr/libexec/at-spi-bus-launcher --launch-immediately &

    }
    fi
}
...