Debug Your .NET Core Apps in WSL 2 with Visual Studio

The post introduces a Visual Studio extension that lets .NET Core developers run and debug apps in WSL 2 without leaving Visual Studio. It positions WSL 2 as a middle ground between remote Linux debugging and containers when the goal is a fast inner loop for Linux testing.

Reading notes

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• The extension is called .NET Core Debugging with WSL 2 – Preview.
• It lets you run and debug .NET Core apps in WSL 2 from Visual Studio.
• The post says WSL 2 is useful for Windows developers targeting Linux when fast inner-loop testing matters.
• Visual Studio already supports remote debugging on Linux and debugging with containers.
• The post says remote debugging and containers are better when production realism is the main concern.
• To use the extension, you first need WSL 2 and a Linux distribution installed.
• After installation, Visual Studio adds a new WSL 2 launch profile for ASP.NET Core web apps and .NET Core console apps.
• Selecting the profile adds it to launchSettings.json.
• The extension checks whether the WSL 2 distribution is set up for .NET Core apps and helps install missing dependencies.
• Debugging starts normally after setup, and the app runs in the default WSL 2 distribution.
• The post suggests checking Environment.OSVersion to confirm the app is running in Linux.
• Only Ubuntu and Debian were tested and are supported.
• Other .NET Core-supported distributions may work if the .NET Core Runtime and Curl are installed manually.
• The launch profile can be edited to target a specific distribution such as Ubuntu 20.04.
• Multiple launch profiles can be used to test the same app across Debian, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 20.04.
• This lets developers switch between target distributions from Visual Studio.