Azure Linux 4.0 on WSL - Beta announcement
There were some really cool announcements at Microsoft Build 2026 for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), mainly wslc but I will cover it in a different blog post, eventually 🤣
Today it is the good old WSL that gets the spotlight as Microsoft just announced the Azure Linux 4.0 Beta for WSL.
Original announcement blog post
Announcing Azure Linux on WSL - Beta
The blog post is very comprehensive and covers a lot of ground, so I will not repeat everything here. Check it out as it goes into quite a bit of details as to why they are doing it and how to get started.
To me it is certainly a useful addition as if you are using any Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) either in Azure or Azure Local, you will be using the same Linux distribution. So it is a very handy way to test stuff before it lands on AKS.
Not a replacement for Ubuntu or other Linux distributions
What is Azure Linux?
From Microsoft’s announcement:
Azure Linux is Microsoft’s internal Linux distribution, designed and maintained to support Azure-scale cloud workloads.
Today, Azure Linux runs across:
- Azure infrastructure
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
- Containerized workloads
- Edge scenarios
- Azure-hosted services
With WSL support, Azure Linux now reaches another important environment: the developer workstation.
Useful links
- Announcing Azure Linux on WSL - Beta
- Announcing Azure Linux 4.0: Purpose-Built for Azure, Now in Public Preview
- Get started with Azure Linux 4.0 on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
- Overview of Azure Linux on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
- Azure Linux 4.0 readme
- WSLC - a bit of a spoiler for another blog 🤣