Support linux paths for startingDirectory of WSL distros

[tackyunicorn]

• Your Windows build number: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.86]

• What you're doing and what's happening:
  Setting the starting directory for wsl in profiles.json doesn't make it point to the right directory.

1. Take the config below :-

{
        "startingDirectory": "C:/Users/joshj/AppData/Local/Packages/CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu16.04onWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc/LocalState/rootfs/home/tackyunicorn",
        "guid": "{a2785f8e-72c9-4550-b406-697388644902}",
        "name": "Ubuntu",
        "colorscheme": "MonokaiVivid",
        "historySize": 9001,
        "snapOnInput": true,
        "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
        "cursorHeight": 25,
        "cursorShape": "vintage",
        "commandline": "wsl.exe",
        "fontFace": "Inconsolata for Powerline",
        "fontSize": 10,
        "acrylicOpacity": 1,
        "useAcrylic": true,
        "closeOnExit": true,
        "padding": "10, 10, 10, 10",
        "icon": "ms-appdata:///roaming/ubuntu.png"
}

This results in wsl starting up in the root folder

2. In this config :-

{
        "startingDirectory": "/home/tackyunicorn",
        "guid": "{a2785f8e-72c9-4550-b406-697388644902}",
        "name": "Ubuntu",
        "colorscheme": "MonokaiVivid",
        "historySize": 9001,
        "snapOnInput": true,
        "cursorColor": "#FFFFFF",
        "cursorHeight": 25,
        "cursorShape": "vintage",
        "commandline": "wsl.exe",
        "fontFace": "Inconsolata for Powerline",
        "fontSize": 10,
        "acrylicOpacity": 1,
        "useAcrylic": true,
        "closeOnExit": true,
        "padding": "10, 10, 10, 10",
        "icon": "ms-appdata:///roaming/ubuntu.png"
}

This results in wsl starting up in the Windows user folder

• What's wrong / what should be happening instead:
  The startingDirectory profile setting is not being applied correctly on a wsl profile

[caksoylar]

it looks like it expects Windows paths but passing the WSL fs paths under AppData directly doesn't work. Using the new UNC path works for me:
"startingDirectory":"//wsl$/Ubuntu/home/cem/src" -> ~/src

So do regular Windows locations:
"startingDirectory":"C:/wd" -> /mnt/c/wd

[zadjii-msft]

Hmm. We should maybe add a setting to suggest that the startingDirectory is a wsl path. Right now we're just manually setting the working directory of the client app we're starting, so we'd have to specifically know that the profile was trying to be wsl, and adjust our logic for passing in a working directory.

[sandeepkv93]

one easy hack would be inside ~/.bashrc file of wsl, add the line
cd ~

Problem solved.

[DHowett-MSFT]

one easy hack would be inside ~/.bashrc file of wsl, add the line
cd ~

Problem solved.

This is also a great way to get weird and unexpected behaviour in everything else that uses bash on your machine. 😄

[JBanks]

This method is a little bit of work. We could parse out the distribution name from the command in the profile so that wsl.exe -d Ubuntu gives us "Ubuntu", and then pass that to Profile::EvaluateStartingDirectory. Then, if it fails, before setting it to %userprofile% we can evaluate \\WSL$\[distributionName][directory] and see if that is a valid directory path.

Or we could make the method a non-static method and draw the value from _commandline.

EDIT: I realize now that this won't work. The P9 server will likely not have been started, and if it had been, won't have all of the distros loaded as available shares under the UNC path.

[benc-uk]

@sandeepkv93 - That hack isn't the best. When working in say VS Code and you want your WSL terminal to open inside your project directory, this will prevent that. Definitely going to cause other problems too

[jkugiya]

My workaround

"commandline" : "wsl.exe ~  -d WLinux"

[siennathesane]

I just edited my /etc/passwd after creating a new user to be my Windows' user's home directory /c/Users/MikeLloyd and set startingDirectory to ~ in my profile.json. It works for me as expected on 18965.1005.

[nanjj]

My workaround

"commandline" : "wsl.exe ~"

[leolozes]

What if I want to set the default directory to a directory in C:?
I tried "commandline" : "wsl.exe /mnt/c/Programming -d Ubuntu-18.04" and other directories, with or without /mnt/c/, with or without singlequotes and no luck.

[Herohtar]

@leolozes The second post in this thread shows how to do exactly what you want.

[anikishov]

in my case, it works this way
"startingDirectory": "//wsl$/Ubuntu-18.04/home/username"

[troy-mac]

Hi all I know I got a few thumbs down for this suggestion that I posted earlier, but I just installed WSL and Ubuntu-20.04 on a new system and all I did was add the below lines to my settings.json file and it 100% worked for dropping me into my home directory. I am not saying it will work for everyone as I am not sure the thumbs down users actually tested this or not, but it has worked for me on 2 different systems both with Ubuntu-20.04 and 18.04. I think it is the easiest thing to try first and if it does not work for you then try a couple other suggestions on this thread.

"startingDirectory": "//wsl$/Ubuntu-20.04/home/troy-mac"
"startingDirectory": "//wsl$/Ubuntu-18.04/home/troy-mac"

or use @antoineco suggestion which may work all the time...
"commandline": "wsl.exe ~ -d Ubuntu"

[antoineco]

@troy-mac I'm speaking for myself here, but the thumb down was a way to say "Warning, reader. The solution suggested in this message doesn't work for everyone, please refer to the accepted solution instead". It wasn't an attempt to dismiss you.

Like you said, "commandline": "wsl.exe ~ -d <distro_name>" (#592 (comment)) works in pretty much any case, so let's make sure this solution is visible to people who go through this issue, instead of trying to come up with new, approximate solutions.

[mslot]

When installing Ubuntu, can use

"startingDirectory":"\\\\wsl$\\[DISTRONAME]\\home\\[USERNAME]"

If not certain what [DISTRONAME] is, do:

1. Win+R
2. \\wsl$
3. Hit enter

Now you will get the fileshare in an explorer. Fx

Simply follow the path to where you want to start from when opening a new tab in Windows Terminal. Remember:

1. four back slashes at the start and
2. two back slashes in between the folder names

Like:

when construcing the startingDirectory. Restart Windows Terminal, and you are good to go.

[Ratismal]

I feel like I must be missing something obvious here. Everything I've read in this issue indicates that if you set your startingDirectory to //wsl$/ubuntu/whatever/path/you/want, it will start in that directory. But that's not the case for me? No matter what I set startingDirectory, it always always takes me to my home directory. This is not what I want.

I've tried making new profiles, and I've tried updating the existing ubuntu profile. I've tried forward slashes, back slashes, ~, everything has the same result. See:

Is it intentional that you're essentially locked into starting at the home directory, or am I missing something?

[zadjii-msft]

You might need to use backslashes (instead of forward slashes), because it definitely works:

Is there anything else in your .bashrc that might be changing directories?

[mariusstrom]

I feel like I must be missing something obvious here. Everything I've read in this issue indicates that if you set your startingDirectory to //wsl$/ubuntu/whatever/path/you/want, it will start in that directory. But that's not the case for me? No matter what I set startingDirectory, it always always takes me to my home directory. This is not what I want.

@Ratismal
What's the output of wsl.exe -l? Make sure the startingDirectory path matches the name of the WSL distro from wsl.exe -l exactly. If case sensitivity is required there, I'm guessing yours should be Ubuntu, and not ubuntu. Some distros include the LTS version in the distro name (like you can see in @zadjii-msft's post above with Ubuntu-18.04).

"startingDirectory": "//wsl$/Ubuntu/home/cat/proj"

I think it's case-sensitive to the distro name.

[mariusstrom]

@zadjii-msft forward slashes unescaped work for me:

[Ratismal]

@mariusstrom

What's the output of wsl.exe -l? Make sure the startingDirectory path matches the name of the WSL distro from wsl.exe -l exactly. If case sensitivity is required there, I'm guessing yours should be Ubuntu, and not ubuntu.

You were exactly right, thank you! I think there might be a bug somewhere in there, though? Did some experimenting.

• //wsl$/ubuntu/path/that/does/exist - brings me to my home directory
• //wsl$/ubuntu/path/that/doesnt/exist - brings me to my home directory in the C: drive
• //wsl$/Ubuntu/path/that/does/exist - brings me to that directory
• //wsl$/Ubuntu/path/that/doesnt/exist - brings me to my home directory in the C: drive

I would expect that case sensitivity would cause /ubuntu/ to always bring me back to the home directory on the C: drive, since its an invalid path. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Is that... intended behaviour?

[zadjii-msft]

Frankly, I have no idea how the WSL filesystem driver works. The best place to ask would be over at https://github.com/microsoft/WSL

[stephenmartindale]

My workaround

"commandline" : "wsl.exe ~  -d WLinux"

This seems to be the commonly accepted solution but it has one fatal flaw: if you use wsl.exe ~ as the commandline, then the --startingDirectory (or -d) parameter to wt.exe ceases to function, properly.

I use the Windows Subsystem for Linux for spinning up sand-boxes for developer experiments, using wsl.exe --export and --import to load up and pack away these sand-boxes as required. At any given time, my default WSL distribution is the one that contains the tool-chain that I'm currently using for my work. For this reason, I've created a WT profile that always spawns whatever the default WSL distribution happens to be:

            {
                "guid": "{75155ba1-aebb-4196-af68-117807257cff}",
                "commandline": "%systemroot%\\System32\\wsl.exe",
                "name": "Windows Subsystem for Linux",
                "icon": "ms-appx:///ProfileIcons/{9acb9455-ca41-5af7-950f-6bca1bc9722f}.png",
            },

This works great because I can use commands like wt.exe --profile "{75155ba1-aebb-4196-af68-117807257cff}" --startingDirectory "D:\Project1". However, as soon as I append ~, then ~ overrides any and all paths passed to wt via the --startingDirectory command-line parameter.

Obviously, not appending ~ means that starting this profile without --startingDirectory, from within the Terminal's U.I. for example, opens up the new shell in System32 which is sub-optimal.

[dark-swordsman]

Using the new UNC path as suggested by caksoylar worked great for me, but just a note to others that, for example, if you have "Ubuntu", it may not just be "Ubuntu". Mine was actually Ubuntu-20.04.

I was able to confirm this by opening up VSCode and using "reveal in explorer" on a file, to which it then opened \\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\....

You can also just do \\wsl$ in the address bar and see it there, I had just forgotten that Windows paths use \, not /, lol.

[LeaveTheCapital]

for me since version 1.9.1445.0 (preview) this no longer worked

{
"commandline": "wsl.exe ~",
"name": "Ubuntu-20.04",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
"startingDirectory": "/home/henry/source"
}

however this works
{
"name": "Ubuntu-20.04",
"source": "Windows.Terminal.Wsl",
"startingDirectory": "//wsl$/Ubuntu-20.04/home/henry/source"
}

[saadanerdetbare]

This works for me: cd into the directory where I want to start and type wslpath -w .
Example output: \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-20.04\home\bob
Put that in the "startingDirectory": and escape any \ with another \

[ednl]

This is because //wsl$/ folder is not initialized until a wsl instance is started. So the first instance wont start in ~, but the others will start in ~ because the first instance initialized the //wsl$/ folder

Is this still true?? I seems to be, it is for me. So is there no way to always (even the first time) start up a WSL instance in the Linux home directory? That seems really strange, especially in WSL2 where the division between file systems is greater because of performance differences.

[ghost]

🎉This issue was addressed in #9223, which has now been successfully released as Windows Terminal Preview v1.11.2421.0.:tada:

Handy links:

• Release Notes
• Store Download

[Seefer]

one easy hack would be inside ~/.bashrc file of wsl, add the line
cd ~

Problem solved.

I've recently discovered that having cd ~ in the .bashrc or .zshrc file of a Linux distro breaks VS Code's integrated terminal behaviour. With cd ~ in one of these shell script files, if you are in a project folder in VS Code and open the integrated terminal, the terminal directory does not point to the project directory. It always opens at ~ .

Is there some other way via WSL to specify the working directory for the distro instead of it always pointing at /mnt/c/Users/<username>?