WSL2 is good, but not usable in all scenarios. IIRC, it can't use systemd services. It is also very slow with file I/O, which is not a problem with small datasets, but some of the git repos I work with are so big that git operations take a couple of minutes to complete in WSL2, but only take a second or so in PowerShell. If you are doing a full backup of your PC with rsync or something like that, it could take days to complete something that would take only 30 minutes or so running in a native Windows shell.

If I have to use Windows then WSL is fine, otherwise I'd always use Linux.

As far as privacy is concerned, if it's running on Windows then WSL is not going to help.

I'd suggest that good middle ground would be installing Linux and running Windows in a VM.

Windows has complete access to the WSL file system, so there’s zero privacy improvement. If you’re concerned with privacy, take a look at Arch Linux or Gentoo to install only the components you want, or if you are looking for extreme privacy, check out Tails or possibly QubesOS. Those are probably not the place to start learning about Linux but you mentioned privacy. Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. all have telemetry and crap built in so if you want privacy/anonymity you should look at other systems like the ones I mentioned. Have fun, good luck.

It's the best thing windows offers, besides maybe full virtualisation. I use it daily at work, but sharing files is annoying. I'd like to just access the files of the windows system, documents dir should be the windows docs and so on. It somewhat works with symlinks, but it still sucks. Git is slow with these linked dirs too, can't create Fifos, fileperms suck, and so on.

Much rather dual boot or use a VM.

I don't see how it would improve privacy at all. WSL is just for running Linux shell on Windows right? Your entire OS stack is still Microsoft's proprietary software.

W/o a fully functional systemd (or equivalent) implementation, there's no dbus session; w/o dbus, GUI apps can't work reliably.

As to various server processes -- windows can kill them at will, if it decides that they're idling.

Peerhaps some cli tools work reliably on wsl2; but then again it's got very slow i/o for extensive use.

I think a fully fledged vm on Hyper-V is a better bet by far.

Personally, I think booting into a linux distro through a USB drive might be more what you're looking for, but for trying specific applications WSL is great.

WSL is good if you need Linux/GNU tools. file, grep, find, and the occasional CMake compile are my typical use cases.

I wouldn't consider it anything more than a tool. Try installing Linux in a VM or old computer if you want to try switching.

Between using wsl to run apps and using windows, I think there's little benefit when talking about privacy. Most open source apps have windows version so you can start your migration without formatting, getting used to the ecosystem and when you change, you won't miss anything.

ok so far I gather that its a no lol

WSL2 bricked every single one of my VMs, took me a full work day just trying to revert back to WSL1. Might not even matter now since my boot nvme might have just died from heat yesterday.

WSL is not Linux. Has none of the advatanges of Linux. Fuck windows