WSL - creating links to Desktop/Documents

[tavareshugo]

TODO:

• Update instructions using wslpath and powershell.exe to automatically fetch paths
• Test instructions on users that have OneDrive as default

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When participants use their own laptops in workshops, often they install WSL but don't setup the symbolic links to their Desktop, which means the course doesn't work later on.

Need to improve the instructions (maybe a video?)

[tavareshugo]

I think this might work to programmatically set symbolic links to Windows files:

ln -s $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("mydocuments")')) ~/Documents
ln -s $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("desktop")')) ~/Desktop
ln -s $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("downloads")')) ~/Downloads

But I need to test this with someone that uses OneDrive.

For testing purpose:

echo $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("mydocuments")'))
echo $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("desktop")'))
echo $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("downloads")'))

[tavareshugo]

The "downloads" keyword does not work. It has to be:

ln -s $(wslpath $(powershell.exe '[environment]::getfolderpath("UserProfile")' | tr -d '\r'))/Downloads ~/Downloads

This is now fixed on the current WSL setup page.

Still need to test this on someone with OneDrive.