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I've gone through the process of installing WSL2 on a Windows 11 laptop and can successfully run, for example, GUI-type LibreOffice apps from the Terminal command line.

So far, so good.

Now I would like to try using Gnome.

I've installed Gnome desktop using:

sudo tasksel install ubuntu-desktop

... but after rebooting I get messages such as:

<3>WSL (1408) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2671: Failed to translate C:\WINDOWS\system32
NotTheDr01ds
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Dabbo
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    A quick search brings up this Microsoft web site. https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/9360 – David Feb 15 '23 at 13:45

2 Answers2

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WSL is not made to run a full Linux Desktop environment, but it can run single graphical applications in a single window.

If you are looking for installing and running a complete Ubuntu desktop on Windows with minimal effort, take a look at Multipass from Canonical and add a Desktop enviroment to the base installation.

noisefloor
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The error that you mention seems unrelated to you trying to run Ubuntu Desktop under WSL.

That error is typically caused by a combination of:

  • Upgrading to a recent release of WSL
  • A directory that doesn't exist being in your Windows path.

In Ubuntu:

powershell.exe -c '$env:PATH' | tr ';' '\n'
  • Look for a directory in that list that doesn't exist in Windows.
  • Go to the Edit the system environment variables Windows setting
  • Press the Environment Variables button

Remove the bad directory from the PATH variable. This might be under either your user or the System variable list.

And while I don't necessarily recommend it, for information on running Ubuntu Desktop in Ubuntu on WSL, see the following questions:

NotTheDr01ds
  • 17,888
  • Thanks for the reply. I've checked all those path directories and they do indeed exist. I've decided not to try installing Ubuntu desktop. I was under misapprehension that that came naturally with WSL2. Don't need it – Dabbo Feb 27 '23 at 16:24