Run Linux on Windows using Hyper-V

1. Hyper-V configuration
2. Debian VM installation
3. Configure SSH access
4. Install additional software

• Create a dynamic vhdx file to use as a block device in linux.
• As per the official microsoft recommendations :
  • BlockSizeBytes at disk creation should be 1MiB (from the default 32MiB).
  • The root partition for the linux host should be created using ext4.
  • The number of block groups should be set to 4096: mkfs.ext4 -G 4096 /dev/sdb.

New-VHD -Path "D:\myDebianHost\myBlockDevice.vhdx" -SizeBytes 20GB -Dynamic -BlockSizeBytes 1MB

• Create a new virtual machine in the Hyper-V manager.
• Select the following values when prompted during the virtual machine creation :

• Once created, right click on myDebianHost, select "properties" and configure as folows :

• Download the Debian ISO installer: debian-13.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso.
• Make sure the host system architecture (amd64 here) matches the downloaded installer.
• Edit virtual machine properties and set up the virtual DVD player to use the ISO installer.
• The other options can be left as default.

• The newly created VM can now be started to proceed with the installation.
• At startup, select "Advanced options / expert install" and choose the following options when prompted :

• Select language : English.
• Select location : Other / Europe / France.
• Configure locales : en_US.UTF-8, ignore additional locales.

• Keymap to use : french.

• Validate installer detection and continue.

• Leave defaults and continue.

• Auto-performs detection.

• Select "auto-configuration" and enter a timeout for network detection.
• Once detected, enter the following values :
  • hostname : mydebianhost.
  • domain name : my.domain.

• Allow login as root : no.
• New user full name : My Admin User.
• New user username : myadminuser.
• New user password : password.

• Set the clock using NTP.
• Leave default NTP server: 0.debian.pool.ntp.org.
• Select time zone : Europe/Paris.

• Auto-performs detection.

• Choose "Guided - use entire disk".
• Select detected disk : SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 21.5 GB Msft Virtual Disk.
• Select "All files in one partition".
• Validate the results, then write changes to disk :

SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 21.5 GB Msft Virtual Disk
               1.0 MB      FREE SPACE
      #1       1.0 GB  f   ESP             /boot/efi
      #2      19.3 GB  f   ext4            /
      #3       1.1 GB  f   swap            swap
               1.0 MB      FREE SPACE

• Auto-installs core packages.
• Kernel to install : linux-image-6.12.38+deb13-amd64 (can very depending on host architecture).
• Drivers to include in initrd : only include drivers needed for that system.

• Skip scanning additional media.
• Continue without a network mirror : no.
• Protocol for file downloads : HTTP.
• Debian archive mirror country : France.
• Debian archive mirror : deb.debian.org.
• HTTP proxy information : leave blank.
• Use non-free firmware : yes.
• Use non-free software : yes.
• Enable source repositories in apt : yes.
• Services to use : "security updates" and "release updates".

• Updates management : no automatic updates.
• Participate in the user package survey : no.
• Choose software to install :
  • SSH server.
  • Standard system utilities.

• Force GRUB installation to the EFI removable media path : yes.
• Update NVRAM variables to automatically boot into Debian : yes.
• Run os-prober automatically to detect and boot other OSes : no.

• Is the system clock set to UTC : yes.
• Installation is now complete and the system can be rebooted.

• Create a key pair using a supported public key algorithm.
• Use ssh-copy-id to copy the public key to the VM and authorize it for SSH access :

# open a session on the new system using ssh
ssh myadminuser@192.168.1.11

# copy file to remote SSH server
scp ~/test.txt myadminuser@192.168.1.11:/home/myadminuser/test.txt.copied

# copy and authorize user public key to access new host
ssh-copy-id -i ~/.ssh/myadminuser.pub myadminuser@192.168.1.11

• Optionally, SSH password-based authentication can now be disabled for added security.

• Install packages that are always useful to have on a linux system :

# policy management
# system monitoring (most to least relevant)
# git
# network utilities
# encryption
# archive management
# shell utilities
# editors
# man pages
# shell linter
# miscellaneous (plus cool stuff)

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
polkitd pkexec \
procps htop iftop psmisc time iotop sysstat \
git \
iproute2 nmap mtr wget curl \
pgpdump \
zip unzip \
bash-completion tree tmux dos2unix \
vim vim-common vim-runtime \
man-db \
shellcheck \
jq cowsay cowsay-off display-dhammapada

• You now have a minimal but complete Linux host running in the windows hypervisor, which makes wsl irrelevant.