WSL

WSL = "Windows Subsystem for Linux"

Basically this is "Ubuntu on Linux" from my perspective, because that's exactly what it feels like to use it.

Bash and an apt package management system but running on the Windows 10 kernel.

Once it's installed you can launch a shell window and then if a command is missing you can do "apt-get install <package>" just like Debian based versions of Linux.

The volumes mounted on Windows are available at /mnt, so for example you can see the C: drive at /mnt/c.

history

My understanding is that Microsoft had a project called "Project Astoria" that was going to allow easier porting of Android apps to Windows 10. Since Android runs on Linux, they got much of the Linux infrastructure running on Windows 10 before Project Astoria was cancelled, and then it was turned into WSL.