linux-setup-scripts VS wsl2_scripts

BTW. I also have much more "sophisticated" repo than the on linked above for setting up/managing/updating WSL distros: linux-setup-scripts. I won't elaborate on it because there is quite good documentation, but there is still much more in it. Enough to said, that today I've installed fresh new Fedora 38 distro, set it completely from scratch with all the tools I use daily, copied all the required stuff and repos, set python environments, etc (distro is at 11GB already) in less than 30 minutes :).

Here is my repo for setting up any Debian/RHEL/Arch/SUSE distro with all the tools I use daily, aliases, shell prompt, etc, where I've used bash quite a lot to automate installing stuff: https://github.com/szymonos/linux-setup-scripts.

Once you resolve this, check out these scripts for backing up and restoring your WSL2 instance.

Also, if you use Docker Desktop (windows), and want to backup your wsl2 ubuntu with the wsl --export command, make sure you shutdown docker first. Here's a repo I have with docker, backup, restore scripts and right-click windows options for restoring. . It's nothing fancy but I like it way better than trying to use an app or manually doing everything.

Huh thought I did.. however.. here it is! Repository

You should learn how to backup wsl ubuntu and restore it. Then you can start a process like this and if it doesn't work, you can restore it back without loss of work. Here are some ideasyou can use to implement this..

This is all available from my Github Repository

Take a look at this github repository.. this is the scripts I have for backup / restore of wsl, stopping / restarting docker for windows. Wrote most of it, but some I just found on the web and copied. NO idea who the original author is. So, I use Executor (it's a windows app) to make some shortcut keys to stop/restart docker. Another to backup the current wsl2 ubuntu. I also have a reg file that installs a windows context menu (right-click) to restore a backup. You right-click on the backup file and select the restore option. It's all simple to use. You will have to read each one and make sure it fits your configuration. The .reg file works on windows 11 but I haven't tested it on windows 10.

I saved this tidbit in my files for future use. I just use one instance right now so I wrote scripts to backup to a directory with a hotkey. I can also restore by right-clicking on a vhdx file and selecting restore. I wrote a registry hack to make that happen. Since I use Docker for Windows (from within ubuntu) I wrote a restart script for that as well and assigned a hotkey. I keep this stuff in my github repository if you should want to look at it. It's nothing amazing but sure makes my life easier.

Also if you are interested in some Windows Utilities (just batch and ps1 files) for backup/restore, here' a git repository .