Support for WSL2 on Windows

04 Jul, '21
Alexandre

Since the Windows Insiders build now offer WSLg, we can assume the next version of Windows will support this feature, so you can (or will be able to) run GitKraken in WSL2.
But this means that you may have 2 instances of GitKraken : the WSL2 one and the native Windows one.
So the WSL2 support could mean something like how VSCode support it, with only one instance, so the "Open" dialog could propose "Open a repository" AND "Open a WSL repository".

14 Aug, '21
Martin Meixger

Another option would be to use a forwarding git binary like 'wslgit'.

Fork graphical git client uses wslgit when accessing repos within WSL2.

See https://github.com/fork-dev/TrackerWin/issues/701 and https://github.com/andy-5/wslgit

1

19 Aug, '21
stefano

Having a VSCode-like experience would be awesome, but how long before that? 🤠

01 Sep, '21
Greg

Soon the WSL2 gui will be released which will allow you to install the linux version of GitKraken directly into wsl2.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/gui-apps

03 Sep, '21
Joel Merged

I've tried to set up my project inside WSL2 as the development experience is faster than setting it up over windows filesystem directly.

Expected:
Gitkraken works as always.

Issue:
Gitkraken was not able to watch for file changes when they are inside WSL directories i.e. \\wsl$\Ubuntu-20.04\home\Projects\

03 Sep, '21
Giacomo Zanotti Admin

"Make GitKraken able to index WSL2 context files" (suggested by Joel on 2021-09-03), including upvotes (1) and comments (0), was merged into this suggestion.

19 Oct, '21
David Bethune

Although it complains when opening a repo, GitKraken actually **does** watch the folder correctly. I open mine through the mapped drive letter (ie `Z:\`) instead of a `\\wsl$` path and GitKraken works fine w/ WSL. My Mac co-workers at work never believe me, but I push to all our repos this way and the file watching works great, both directions.

27 Oct, '21
Nicolas Bihan

I tested GitKraken 8.1.0 on Windows 11 and WSLg and it works pretty well. There are few bugs that I think are more related to WSLg and some minor things to fix on GitKraken side.
For example, after computer went to sleep it can be challenging to get back the WSLg applications being responsive. I had multiple times lost the ability to type the "e" character in my WSLg applications!!!
One thing that would be nice to fix is that GitKraken is not showing the application icon in the Windows taskbar, but only the generic Linux Tux logo, where other applications like IntelliJ it is displaying correctly.

17 Nov, '21
Reijo

WSL2 GUI has landed into Windows insider previews. I'm hoping to go that way, but vscode like support through volumes would be even more awesome.

26 Nov, '21
Alexander Moser

For anyone who neither wants to wait for this to be implement nor can/wants to get a WSL Insider preview: I've been running GitKraken natively inside WSL2 for a while now using this guide: https://chuckdries.medium.com/installing-gitkraken-in-wsl-2-15bf6459f823

13 Jan, '22
Sylvain Fabre

I tried using gitkraken with WSLg but after sometimes I hit this issue https://github.com/microsoft/wslg/issues/179

I don't think it comes from gitkraken but it makes it impossible to use it on a daily basis.

A forwarding git binary like 'wslgit' or a VSCode-like experience would be amazing to get a working gitkraken out of the box

20 Jan, '22
Federico Liva

GitKraken can work if installed on WSL2 but is full of problems. It freezes or crashes often, and the only thing to do then is to restart WSL. Very annoying for daily use. On the other hand, GitKraken installed directly on Windows cannot talk to WSL. A dead-end situation...

09 Feb, '22
Szymon Toda

Simply let us choose just like Windows Terminal app does:
PowerShell
Command prompt
Debian (WSL1)
Ubuntu (WSL2)
Git Bash
etc.

23 Feb, '22
Youri

If you have the problem that gitkraken cannot watch the files you should check the owner en permissions in the wsl directory. My problem was that in ubuntu 20.04 the folder with my repositorys the owner/group was root. After changing this to your non root user gitkraken is able to watch your files.

sudo chown owner:group directory/ -R

02 Mar, '22
Eldair

Why can't you make it work like vscode remote wsl extension? Without proper wsl support this tool is almost useless (unless you want to have duplicate projects inside and outside wsl)

07 Mar, '22
Daniel

I'm not being able to make it work neither using Windows native (with a WSL repo folder) nor Gitkraken installed under WSL

When I'm using Gitkraken Windows client (using a repo inside WSL) it is EXTREMELLY slow, crashing constantly

When I'm using Gitkraken inside WSL it opens (I'm using WSL) but it never leaves the splash screen.

17 Mar, '22
Jade

So Gitkraken under WSL2g does not work well. Since this is the highest-voted open request and is impacting the usability of Gitkraken for many users it would be nice to see a repsonse from Gitkraken/axosoft. Can anything be done or do we just have to put up with flakey WSL2g?

20 Mar, '22
blyce

For me it kind of works with WSL2 but it throws some weird errors about synching - but it still detects changes. Annoying. Hoping they improve / Add WSL2 support asap.

However, just adding a WSL2 folder works, change detection works but I haven't tried to do more besides commits yet (which I do anyways usually in my VSC).

I run WIN 11.

31 Mar, '22
Niels Matthijs

For me this "works", in a technical sense. It's just insanely slow. Switching branches can take minutes, the interface becomes unresponsive and pulling/pushing is terribly slow. So much that practically speaking, it's not really workable.

More and more of the projects I work on are running in WSL2, so decent support would definitely improve my workflow. For now I use GitKraken to give me a visual overview of the git repos, but I do the actual commands in WSL, just so I don't spend 20 minutes in an unresponsive program trying to push some changes.

01 Apr, '22
YQ

Agree with Niels Matthijs, I'm still deciding whether need to continue to subscribe to Gitkraken or not. The insane slowness forces me to use VS code to commit my code, I don't see any points I need to move out from WSL2 just for Gitkraken to get its works done.

01 Apr, '22
Michael

It'd be great to get a fix for this. Until then I unfortunately need to abandon GitKraken. 100% of my projects are in WSL2 now.

07 Apr, '22
Reijo

Technically it works, but it's very slow.

A workaround is to run Ubuntu version of GitKraken via WSL2 GUI, but it's not a good experience either, since WSL2 GUI is far from polished, lacks window snapping, lags when moving windows, and often the client window opens outside the monitor in a way that a full WSL shutdown is required to get the window to re-open centered.

Most of the time I find myself using vscode built in git features now, which are a far cry from how well GitKraken functions when it's performant. Our company is in transition, and soon every project will be running dockerised inside WSL2. When we're there, I expect we'll be re-evaluating our git client choice.

18 Apr, '22
Chris

All my projects are in WSL2 as well and I've stopped using gitkraken because it really doesn't work on projects in WSL2. If this can work, I'd start using gitkraken again. I really miss it. Thanks.

19 Apr, '22
Will

Considering you can symlink directories that exist in the Windows filesystem, perhaps the temporary workaround is to simply run Gitkraken in Windows and create a symlink in WSL to the windows git projects folder?

https://peter-whyte.com/create-a-link-between-local-windows-files-and-wsl/

20 Apr, '22
Paying Customer

second most upvoted feature, still "under consideration", this feels like spitting paying customers in their faces

26 Apr, '22
Daniel Gibbs

This feature is massively important for me and my colleagues who are moving into WSL and docker. I currently have to use Gitkraken with WSLg which is far from ideal as it crashes and is laggy. Please implement this feature as GitKraken is an otherwise brilliant Git Client

28 Apr, '22
Igor

This is really needed feature, I tried GitKraken through WSL and it is really laggy, and sometimes it just breaks. It would be really cool to have something like VSCode does. I love GitKraken client but it is much faster to work within VSCode than GitKrakne and I would like to use GitKraken all the time :)
Hope this feature will be in the future versions because I would gladly support it :)

01 May, '22
Pedro

I guess still waiting ;(

04 May, '22
Saulo

I need this!

06 May, '22
Ramses

This answer from Will, worked for me like a charm in Windows 10

Will
Considering you can symlink directories that exist in the Windows filesystem, perhaps the temporary workaround is to simply run Gitkraken in Windows and create a symlink in WSL to the windows git projects folder?

https://peter-whyte.com/create-a-link-between-local-windows-files-and-wsl/

07 May, '22
Monochrome

I never experienced any bugs with WSL2 and I use it everyday.

The only problem I have is that I have to disable "AutoCRLF" when working on WSL repos or GitKraken will edit all newlines on clone.

18 May, '22
Medin

I really need Gitkraken to work in WSL, this is a dealbreaker for my new project where we use WSL2 and Docker, Can you please give us an update on this topic?

19 May, '22
LT

Gitkraken is almost unusable with WSL repos (Win11 & WSL2). The sad part is that most of the alternatives handle WSL perfectly fine but here it is still "under consideration". I will switch to another client when my annual subscription ends. Not that I want to but it's just too painful to continue using Gitkraken.

24 May, '22
JH YANG

Gitkraken on WSL2 works great on my side

08 Jun, '22
Brian Trotter

Just want to add my voice here. This is a very important feature to me, and it cannot come soon enough. Please make it a priority!!!

09 Jun, '22
Brandon Hernandez

Please add WSL2 compatibility!!

11 Jun, '22
SirMishaa

PHPStorm have a lot of issue with git, in this time

I'm using WSL 2 a lot. Please, support it.
If Gitkraken offers this feature, I am ready to take the paid version and migrate completely to it.

Please, this is the only feature that is holding me back from switching at the moment, it's crucial to me.

13 Jun, '22
Pedro

I'm using WSL2 + W11.

It is installed inside the wsl2 environment and it sucks, it keeps freezing from time to time, it's so very slow compared to using directly with ubuntu.

It's a slap in the face that we are paying for this and aren't able to use to the fullest.

14 Jun, '22
Bob

WSL2 support please.

16 Jun, '22
Manoj Rai

It was working alright though slow and buggy in WSL2 but since yesterday it become painful. Been connecting to the WSL2 folder via the windows gitkraken client. I have an uncommitted file that just won't go away. Tried resetting all, discarding, stash nothing worked. Stashing creates a copy but the unchanged files remain there like a zombie.

Tried commands directly from WSL2 terminal hoping to get Gitkraken cleared of bugs but nothing works. Now I cant pull, push, and have many stashes of the same zombie file. I am rethinking my whole life.

16 Jun, '22
Julo

Yes, please

27 Jun, '22
Jamie Carl

I have used GitKraken as both Windows and Linux/WSL apps.

Windows installed app accessing the WSL filesystem has these Issues:
* File watching doesn't work. Regardless of permissions, as stated by other users.
* File access performance is incredibly slow. Yes, this is the WSL filesystem, but Gitkraken suffers greatly because of it.

WSL2 installed app has these issues:
* Crashes often. WSLg appears to be unstable. It uses remote desktop to transmit visuals and the link between WSL and RD seems to break randomly.
* Looks like garbage. Window decoration is WSLg styled and does not play nice with other windows. Often I will lose my window because it is outside the bounds of my display.

While none of the stated issues are directly due to problems with GitKraken, considering the most productive development workflows on Windows currently use WSL2, I would urge Axosoft to investigate how GitKraken can best solve these issues for it's users.

27 Jun, '22
Ricardo Joia

I've been trying to use WSL2 on my work machine and also pave the way for others to follow. Currently I'm using gk on windows and using the wsl path but it's very slow and sometimes I need to kill it and try again.

I saw some workarounds with using a virtual X server, but company policies block it from running.

One "quick" win could be to make available only the gk CLI for linux (Ubuntu and other distros) so that we could have a go with some of the features.

06 Jul, '22
Nathan

After finally upgrading from WSL1, I'm suffering from this issue also. Considering switching to another Git client, because everything else in my workflow requires WSL2.

Perhaps git could run from within WSL2 over SSH?

Some of my tooling supports WSL2 in this way, though they're running php or other binaries, not git.

13 Jul, '22
Kristijan

Without WSL2 support there is 0 point in paying for the tool. I am not going to duplicate all of my repos in windows just for this.

16 Jul, '22
Josh

It works just fine under WSL2 using a virtual X server. As long as you install gitkraken internally to WSL2 and only use it for repos stored inside of WSL's filesystem.

If you have repos in Windows install gitkraken in native Windows as well for those repos.

Super fast in both and way nicer (for the most part than SourceTree which I was using)

05 Aug, '22
Felix

Please add native support for this. Jetbrains, VSCode have this built into their IDE's and they work like a charm. I too have this installed in WSL2 but not only is it a bodge but key features like oauth for certain apps do not work as they don't auto launch a browser window to sign in. GK sometimes crashes in WSL2 also and I have to restart my PC to get it to launch again as after one crash it's unrecoverable. I as an individual pay for a pro license, and this is not good enough. This is a key feature.

09 Aug, '22
Thibaut

Running gitkraken on a headless server by using ssh with Agent Forwarding from a local WSL2 bash instance is completely broken.

Clicking or scrolling through the top menu will cause the menu to disappear (no text).

16 Aug, '22
Grimur

While it technically works with xserver under WSL2 it's very buggy and it's barely useable if you have display scaling. I have a 4k monitor with 150% scaling and I can barely read the text in the app. This isn't really gitkrakens fault but rather a problem with WSL2 but it just highlights the problems that WSL2 has.

At this point I do all my programming in WSL2 so having native support for it and just remote development in general is a requirement for me.

1

18 Aug, '22
Vincent

Same issues here.

Going to drop renewal for my license as everything in my development environment is based on WSL2 (using docker for web projects).

1

Support for WSL2 on Windows

Comments: 88