Using Linux IDE with WSLg

Motivation

Most Java programmers use IntelliJ IDEA on Windows for development and deploy to Linux servers. In most cases, Java’s strong cross-platform nature makes this work fine. However, there are times when platform-specific APIs cause cross-platform headaches—for example, Selenium development requires native browser components that need specific runtime environment configuration, and environment differences can lead to extra debugging effort.

Requirements

• Windows 11
• WSL2
• Ubuntu 22.04

Install WSLg Runtime

Follow Microsoft’s official guide to set up the WSLg environment.

Update Package Sources

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

Install Dependencies

After updating, you still cannot launch GUI applications directly. You need to install XWayland-related dependencies. Following the guide, simply install vlc:

sudo apt install vlc -y

Download Toolbox for Linux and Extract

Download the Linux version from the download page and extract it.

wget https://download.jetbrains.com/toolbox/jetbrains-toolbox-2.1.0.18144.tar.gz
tar -zxvf jetbrains-toolbox-2.1.0.18144.tar.gz

Install AppImage Runtime

Reference

# Ubuntu 22.04 installation
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt install libfuse2

Run Toolbox

./jetbrains-toolbox-2.1.0.18144/jetbrains-toolbox

Install IDEA

Click IntelliJ IDEA Community, then click Install.

Other JetBrains IDEs can also be installed this way.

This article is translated by deepseek-v4-flash (model: deepseek/deepseek-v4-flash).