microsoft / microsoft/WSL

Mounting a specific partition on the boot device

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feature
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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.**

I read in the docs that this is currenlty not supported. Do you have plans to add this support? I currently want to add a Linux partition to be used by WSL on the same boot device (disk) that my Windows is installed on.

Describe the solution you'd like

For this feature to be implemented into wsl --mount.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I don't think there are any. Only other thing I can do is get another drive, boot to the other partition (Linux) copy the contents of that partition to the other drive, and mount that drive - that's not what I'm looking to do - I want to use the single drive I have.

Additional context

It'd enable having multiple Linux distros and generally multiple Linux-supported partitions that aren't supported by Windows to be used by WSL.

I moved back to Windows due to lack of support of games and some softwares in Linux, and now I'm a bit bummed out that I even thoughWSL exists, I can't access all of my files and existing distro installation, and either have to start from scartch, boot to it separately, or not use it at all, making WSL useless for me for this use case.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading the documentation for wsl --mount and the current limitations around partitions on the boot device. Review existing mount behavior and define completion as allowing a specific Linux partition on the Windows boot disk to be mounted through wsl --mount without breaking current use cases.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
linux
Domain
cli, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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