WSL

Configure WSL

1. Download and install a WSL distribution (for instance, Ubuntu) from Microsoft Store.

   For this step, be sure to use at least Windows 10 or later with the latest “Fall Creators Update” (minimum version 1709, build 16299.15). See the official guide Install the Windows Subsystem for Linux for instructions.

   To work with WSL 2, your Windows version should be 10 build 18917 or later. Follow these instructions to switch the distributive.

   Note that PhpStorm does not support legacy WSL, which you may have installed before upgrading your system to the build 16299.15 or later of Windows 10. In this case, you need to update your WSL distribution.

2. Run the Linux distribution.

   Upon the first launch, the system may prompt you to enable the Windows optional feature. In this case, you need to do the following:

   • Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator and run

     Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

   • Restart your computer.

3. Inside the Linux installation, make sure PHP is installed. For the detailed installation instructions, refer to Debian GNU/Linux installation notes. If you are using Ubuntu, you can run this command in the Terminal to quickly install PHP:

   sudo apt install php php-mbstring php-xml php-zip php-curl php-xdebug

4. Configure a WSL-based remote interpreter as described in Configure remote PHP interpreters. You can appoint the created interpreter for all common tasks: executing scripts or Composer commands, running PHP Quality tools, and so on.

Open a project stored in the WSL file system

In PhpStorm, you can directly open a project stored in the WSL file system and work with it like with any other project.

1. Click Open on the Welcome screen or select File | Open from the main menu.

2. In the Select Path dialog that opens, select the folder in the WSL file system that contains the project to open, or type the path to the \\wsl$ project location manually.

   

tip

PhpStorm supports Git from the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2), which is available in Windows 10 version 2004.

If Git is not installed on Windows, PhpStorm searches for Git in WSL and uses it from there. Also, PhpStorm automatically switches to Git from WSL for projects that are opened when you use the \\wsl$ path.

For details on working with Git in PhpStorm, see Git.