Unable to install Fedora 42 under WSL

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1

I run full Fedora on all my other systems, but have to run Windows on my work laptop so I use Linux under WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) there. I used to run an unofficial Fedora under WSL, but deleted it to move to the official Fedora 42 cloud images.

I’m trying to follow the slightly out-dated instructions here:

It seems to install OK but then errors out when I try to run it. Does anyone have any ideas what I’m doing wrong or have exact instructions how to do it with the released F42 images?

I tried it from both a normal command prompt and an Administrator command prompt and the errors look the same.

C:\Users\gkendall\Downloads>wsl --version
WSL version: 2.4.13.0
Kernel version: 5.15.167.4-1
WSLg version: 1.0.65
MSRDC version: 1.2.5716
Direct3D version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore version: 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Windows version: 10.0.19045.5608

C:\Users\gkendall\Downloads>wsl --list
Windows Subsystem for Linux Distributions:
Ubuntu (Default)

C:\Users\gkendall\Downloads>wsl --install --from-file Fedora-Cloud-Base-GCE-42-1.1.x86_64.tar.gz --name Fedora
Installing: Fedora-Cloud-Base-GCE-42-1.1.x86_64.tar.gz
Distribution successfully installed. It can be launched via ‘wsl.exe -d Fedora’

C:\Users\gkendall\Downloads>wsl.exe -d Fedora
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: CreateProcessParseCommon:863: Failed to translate C:\Users\gkendall\Downloads
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: CreateProcessParseCommon:909: getpwuid(0) failed 2
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\java8path
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\SlickEdit Pro 28.0.0\win
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\system32
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\System32\Wbem
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\VIP Access Client
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Box\Box Edit
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Apps Migration
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\c\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\perl\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\dotnet
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Plantronics\Spokes3G
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\PuTTY
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Google\Google Apps Sync
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Google\Google Apps Migration
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Symantec\VIP Access Client
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Box\Box Edit
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Apps Migration
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\core_perl
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\usr\local\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\PuTTY
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation\PhysX\Common
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Plantronics\Spokes3G
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Users\gkendall\gitclihome
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vendor_perl
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\util
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate c:\Users\gkendall\gitclihome\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Users\gkendall\gitclihome\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Apps Sync
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\system32
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\java8path
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Users\gkendall\AppData\Local\M
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\Git\cmd
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files\dotnet
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\System32\Wbem
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\perl\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Users\gkendall\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Program Files (x86)\SlickEdit Pro 28.0.0\win
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Strawberry\c\bin
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: UtilTranslatePathList:2878: Failed to translate C:\Python27
Processing fstab with mount -a failed.
Failed to mount C:, see dmesg for more details.

<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: operator():420: getpwuid(0) failed 2
<3>WSL (9 - Relay) ERROR: CreateProcessCommon:640: execvpe(/bin/sh) failed: No such file or directory

Thanks.

3

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, but do you have Docker installed in Windows?

If so, it seems like sometimes you need to set your desired WSL distribution to be WSL’s default before running it: https://markimarta.com/windows/how-to-fix-error-wsl-12-relay-error-createprocessparsecommon-in-windows-11/

4

I don’t have docker installed, but that error does look similar to mine. So I tried the suggested fix of changing the default to Fedora, but unfortunately it didn’t make any difference.

5

Based on the file name it looks like you’re using the Google Cloud Engine image.

It should be available to install using wsl --install Fedora-42 shortly, but if you would like to give it a try in the meantime the x86_64 image is available at https://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/42/Container/x86_64/images/Fedora-WSL-Base-42-1.1.x86_64.tar.xz.

Once you download it be sure to validate the checksum. In Powershell something like:

$ExpectedHash = '99fb3d05d78ca17c6815bb03cf528da8ef82ebc6260407f2b09461e0da8a1b8d'
$ActualHash = Get-FileHash .\Downloads\Fedora-WSL-Base-42-1.1.x86_64.tar.xz -Algorithm SHA256
$ExpectedHash -eq $ActualHash.Hash

should print “True”

Then you can do wsl --install --from-file Fedora-WSL-Base-42-1.1.x86_64.tar.xz.

1 Like
6

Thanks Jeremy. I installed the image you linked and it works great! I was looking for the right image on Fedora Cloud | The Fedora Project, but there wasn’t a tar.xz listed like the instructions showed so I tried a few guesses.

That’s great to hear it will soon be available via wsl --install too.

It may be already planned, but would be good to have a top level entry on Get Fedora telling people how to get and install the WSL version so it’s easier to find.

7

I’ve filed an issue to get the images linked somewhere but I did it rather late in the release process so it might be some time before someone with more web skills than me does it.

The good news is it’s now installable by running wsl --install FedoraLinux-42 so folks won’t need to manually download and install the tarball.

8

Excellent, thanks again.