2026-06-16
Exherbo Linux is now a one-click install on the Microsoft Store as a WSL2 distribution. Search "Exherbo Linux WSL" or grab it directly: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/<STORE-URL>
This is the first of four planned WSL distributions I'm shipping to the Store. Exherbo went first because it's small, has a loyal user base, and had no existing Store presence. Three more in the pipeline behind it: Chimera Linux (musl + LLVM + dinit), Gentoo, and a polished Fedora release that picks up where the existing Fedora Remix leaves off.
The MSIX wraps Microsoft's official WSL-DistroLauncher template (MIT licensed) with the upstream Exherbo -current.tar.xz stage pulled from stages.exherbo.org and sha256-verified at build time via the .sha256sum sibling URL. Nothing third-party in the rootfs.
The launcher does the standard WSL OOBE - creates a wheel-group user, runs passwd interactively, drops you into bash. /etc/wsl.conf ships hardened: noexec on /mnt/c (so a Windows .exe in /mnt/c can't be accidentally executed from Linux), appendWindowsPath=false so the Linux PATH stays clean.
After install, cave sync and you're running source-based Exherbo on Windows.
Three scripts and a thin C++ launcher:
- fetch-rootfs.ps1: pulls the upstream stage, sha-verifies it. - build-msix.ps1: auto-locates msbuild across all VS 2022 editions (BuildTools / Community / Professional / Enterprise), packs the MSIX via MakeAppx and signs via signtool. Doesn't need the UWP workload, so VS Build Tools alone is enough. - make-cert.ps1: generates the self-signed dev cert for sideload testing.
The full source is at https://github.com/t3m3d/exherbo-wsl-store (MIT). Same pattern's used for the three sibling distros — each swaps the rootfs URL, the OOBE specifics (cave for Exherbo, emerge for Gentoo, apk for Chimera, dnf for Fedora), and the launcher identity.
No telemetry, no analytics, ever. https://krypton-lang.org/exherbo-privacy.html
The same distro is also available via a PowerShell installer: https://github.com/t3m3d/exherbo-wsl2-installer