Here are some default vars for the process

ISO_DIR=~/fedora;
ROOTFS_MOUNT_DIR=/mnt/contents

DISTRO_LOCATION=

1. Install Ubuntu Bash

2. Install 7zip in ubuntu

   sudo apt-get install p7zip 
   

3. Download the distro of your choice (i.e Fedora)

4. Move the ISO to its own folder, i.e ~/fedora

5. Navigate to the directory and Extract using 7Zip

mkdir $ISO_DIR; cd $ISO_DIR;
7z x Fedora-Cinnamon-Live-x86_64-31-1.9.iso

You should see the following files or similar

artman41@DESKTOP-TQGCI07:~/fedora$ ll | less
total 2139660
drwxr-xr-x  7 artman41 artman41       4096 Mar 31 16:04 ./
drwxr-xr-x 10 artman41 artman41       4096 Mar 31 16:03 ../
drwx------  3 artman41 artman41       4096 Oct 24 00:15 EFI/
-rwxr-xr-x  1 artman41 artman41 2203779072 Mar 31 16:03 Fedora-Cinnamon-Live-x86_64-31-1.9.iso*
drwx------  2 artman41 artman41       4096 Oct 24 00:15 LiveOS/
drwx------  2 artman41 artman41       4096 Mar 31 16:04 [BOOT]/
drwx------  3 artman41 artman41       4096 Oct 24 00:15 images/
drwx------  2 artman41 artman41       4096 Oct 24 00:15 isolinux/

1. Navigate to LiveOS (or where the squashfs is) and ‘unsquash’ the squash.img:

   cd LiveOS;
   sudo unsquashfs -d squashfs squashfs.img
   

2. Navigate to squashfs/LiveOS and mount the rootfs.img:

   sudo mkdir $ROOTFS_MOUNT_DIR;
   sudo mount -o loop squashfs/LiveOS/rootfs.img $ROOTFS_MOUNT_DIR;
   

3. Navigate to $ROOTFS_MOUNT_DIR and tar.gz the files:

   cd $ROOTFS_MOUNT_DIR;
   sudo tar -zcvf $ISO_DIR/distro.tar.gz .
   

4. Navigate to $ISO_DIR and import the .tar.gz using wsl

   cd $ISO_DIR
   wsl.exe --import $DISTRO_NAME $DISTRO_LOCATION distro.tar.gz
   

5. Open your distro and create a user

   wsl.exe -d $DISTRO_NAME
   useradd -m $USER
   

Logging in to your account by default

Note: Don’t forget to add yourself to visudo or you’ll be unable to perform super-user actions until you set the DefaultUser field in regedit to 0

1. Get your uid

   grep $USER /etc/passwd
   # The return will be something like artman41:x:1000:1000:root:/root:/bin/bash
   #  where the format is $USER:x:$USER_ID:$GROUP_ID:$GROUP:$HOME:$SHELL
   

2. Install Windows Terminal and Open the JSON Settings

   #in powershell
   notepad.exe $env:LocalAppData\Packages\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState\profiles.json
   

3. Look for the profile with $DISTRO_NAME and note the GUID (referred to as $DISTRO_GUID in the guide)
   • copying the GUID to defaultProfile will make you load in to your custom distro by default using the windows terminal

4. Open regedit and navigate to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss\$DISTRO_GUID

5. Ensure the following values are set

1. Restart your custom distro shell