WSL2’s focus isn’t so much on basic functionality (there’s been an emulator for a while) as it is performance. It should load and run faster, with reduced memory consumption to free up your RAM for other tasks. This prioritization isn’t completely surprising. Now that Microsoft is less dependent on Windows sales and more on services like Azure, it benefits when it treats Linux like a first-class citizen. Still, it’s clear Microsoft has come a long, long way from the days when it was waging war on Linux and otherwise trying to hold on to its monopoly in computing.