Run Linux GUI apps

MSL doesn’t run Linux GUI apps. It has no equivalent of WSLg, so X11 and Wayland programs in a distribution have no display to open windows on.

Alternatives

• Web interfaces. A server in a distribution that listens on localhost is reachable at localhost on macOS. Open tools with a web UI, such as Jupyter or a dev server, in a macOS browser. See Networking.
• VS Code. Edit, debug and browse files in the distribution from VS Code on macOS. See Get started using VS Code with MSL.
• macOS apps on Linux files. Open files in the distribution with macOS apps through ~/.msl/distros/<distro> in Finder. See Working across file systems.