Windows 10 VDI with Ubuntu Pre-Installed

[VSprague]

I have a floating instant clone Windows 10 1903 View pool that I want to deploy the Ubuntu appx to. I want it setup so users can have it ready to go when they login and not have to install it everytime. But with floating pools, when the vm gets destroyed so does the Ubuntu application. I'm wondering if anyone else has done this and had it work successfully, and if so how did you do it?

[sjesse]

Can you put it in the parrent image?

[VSprague]

I've been trying to use the Add-AppxProvisionedPackage to do just that but it hasn't exactly been working properly. The last time I tried it was complaining about a license issue.

[VSprague]

So I had better luck with Ubuntu 18. I ran the following command on the template and now the package launches successfully on the deployed VMs. Ubuntu 16 was giving me a license error when i tried to skip the license.

Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackagePath c:\Linux\Ubuntu_18.04.appx -SkipLicense

However, since the machine is deleted and recreated when someone logs out, every-time I login I need to reconfigure the Ubuntu instance. I need to figure out how to roam the Instance configuration so that way users aren't prompted to configure the package every time they login. Otherwise I'll need to go with Dedicated VM's and I don't really want to do that. for a variety of reasons.

[larstr]

Looks like it's storing the data under %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Packages (How to Access Your Ubuntu Bash Files in Windows (and Your Windows System Drive in Bash) )

If you setup DEM to manage this folder you should be good.

Lars

[VSprague]

I've tried migrating that folder but whenever I've done it, the Ubuntu instance errors out when I log into a fresh vm and try to run it. At this point I think it's somehow tied to the machine itself and just can't be roamed. For the time being it looks like I'm gonna be stuck with dedicated vms.

[larstr]

VSprague,

You can probably use UEM to manually import+export the config at logon / logoff.

wsl --export <Distro> <filepath (ex: ./debian-development.wsl)>

wsl --import <filepath to your backup)

I guess you'll have to check if this is a doable solution or if it's too slow.

Lars