Porsche Informatik WSL Distribution

This distribution is based on the current Fedora and includes the following:

• Installed packages
  • Docker
  • mise for package management
• Includes Zscaler and Porsche certificates. The script fix-java-certs which will add the certificates to all JVMs under ~/.local.
• Automatic Artifactory config for Maven, NPM and Docker with poi-artifactory-setup
• Auto-update via the script poi-update. The script will update your system once a month - it will ask you when opening a shell.

Installation

1. If you had a prior version of WSL installed (before version 1.0.0) make sure you uninstall all WSL installs, restart your computer and then continue with the installation.

2. Download and install WSL2 (wsl --install --no-distribution): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install. You will need Administrator rights for that (but do not launch the command as Admin).

3. Install the "POI AnyConnect Config for WSL" via RealmJoin. This will set 172.21.96.1 as the IP of your WSL adapter (using NatGatewayIpAddress and NatNetwork in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss).

   

   (You'll have to restart WSL wsl --shutdown after the installation if you install this later)

4. For Windows 11 > 22H2 create a .wslconfig file in your Windows home directory ($env:USERPROFILE\.wslconfig) with the following content:

     [wsl2]
     dnsTunneling=true
   

5. Important: please restart your PC now!

6. Download the current Porsche Informatik WSL distribution from https://artifactory.porscheinformatik.com/artifactory/raw-wsl-distros/ and unzip the containing .tar file.

7. Open a PowerShell and import the WSL distribution with:

   mkdir C:\Dev\WSL\POI-Fedora
   wsl --import POI-Fedora C:\Dev\WSL\POI-Fedora "C:\Users\$env:USERNAME\Downloads\POI-Fedora-{date}.tar"
   wsl --set-default POI-Fedora
   

First Steps

Launch the distribution and create your user. In Powershell run

wsl -d POI-Fedora

This will ask you for username and password to create your new Linux user.

Then it will perform the development setup (script wsl-first-run-user)

Follow the instructions in the output (wsl -t POI-Fedora and then wsl -d POI-Fedora).

Optional steps after the setup

• If you want to use more (or less) memory/CPU with WSL you can edit $env:USERPROFILE\.wslconfig

  Example: using maximum of 40GB RAM + 8GB swap:

  [wsl2]
  swap=8GB
  memory=40GB
  

  See also Advanced settings configuration in WSL.

• Install additional software via apt, brew or mise

• brew: the distro includes Homebrew. You can use this to install a wide range of applications

  brew install kubectl
  

• mise: the distro also includes mise. This can be used to install CLI tools (also with different versions per project):

  mise global <tool>@<version>
  

  for example:

  mise global python@latest
  

  This will install the tool and set it as the global default.

• WSL Hello sudo - allows login with face/touch id

  See install instruction here: https://github.com/nullpo-head/WSL-Hello-sudo

• Nerd Fonts

  Get your favorite font from e.g. https://www.nerdfonts.com/font-downloads

  Download and unzip into "~/.local/share/fonts" and then run "fc-cache -fv"

• Big Mouse Cursor

  If you like big mouse pointers install the package big-cursor:

  sudo apt install big-cursor
  

Changelog

2026-06-05

• Switch to Fedora 44 as base distribution
• Use Java 25 per default
• Use Node 24 per default
• Add pnpm as package manager for Node.js
• Remove Google Chrome (if you want to use it, you can install it yourself: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/installing-chromium-or-google-chrome-browsers/)
• zsh config changes
  • Use zinit for plugin management
  • Add fzf and zoxide for better navigation
  • Replace starship with Powerlevel10k

2025-08-20

• Switch to Debian 13 as base distribution
• Use Java 21 per default
• Use Node 22 per default
• Use Windows ssh for 1Password SSH-Agent support
• zsh config changes
  • Change zsh setup to use zinit
  • Use Powerlevel10k instead of Starship
  • Add fzf and zoxide for better navigation

2024-06-29

• Update versions in poi-update script

2024-03-27

• Add mise self-update to POI update script

2024-01-12

• Remove POI-specific network setup
• Completly remove snap and snapd
• Switch from rtx to mise (see https://mise.jdx.dev/rtx.html)

2023-10-04

• Add Homebrew to the distribution
• Remove Eclipse and Intellij IDEA setup on first run

2023-03-15

• Fix password setting - loop until set
• Added rtx shims https://github.com/jdxcode/rtx#shims

2023-03-14

• Switch default shell to zsh
• Fix errors with hostname and wsl-first-run-user
• Node.js 18.15.0
• Helm 3.11.2

2023-02-23

• Reduce image size by cleaning up and zipping result
• Install asdf to make Java plugin happy with rtx

2023-02-01

• Additional packages installed:
  • Google Chrome
  • ntpdate (for fixing the time in WSL)
  • zip
• Register wslview as default browser
• Fix DNS issue with multiple WSL distros running