Support for WSL2

[ThomasVitale]

Thanks so much for building this extension. I use it on macOS and it's extremely useful!

I'm trying to get it to work on WSL2, but I'm running into some issues. On Linux or macOS, I would use a Nix package to define VSCode+Extensions. However, that doesn't work on WSL2, where the supported way of running VSCode is by installing it on Windows (and it's then available from WSL2 from code .).

Since I can't use the Nix package for it, I tried to use this extension to activate a Flox environment. However, after clicking the button "Activate Environment", the workspace is closed but never restarted.

The steps I follow:

1. [WSL2] Go into a directory where a Flox environment is defined
2. [WSL2] Run flox activate
3. [WSL2] Run code .
4. [Windows] VSCode is opened automatically on top of the WSL2 file system. However, the session is not running inside the Flox environment even if it was launched from an activated Flox environment.

At that point I try to use the Flox VSCode extension to "Activate Environment", which doesn't work (though, I can activate the environment from a terminal window inside VSCode using the flox CLI, but that would only work from within that shell and not for VSCode).

[garbas]

@ThomasVitale Sorry for late reply. I completely missed this issue of yours.

I know VSCode does something different on Windows with regard to managing VSCode instances, so we'll have to look into that and see if we can adopt to it.

[ThomasVitale]

@garbas thanks so much for your reply! In case, I'm available to provide more information about the issue or for testing possible fixes. Thanks!

[garbas]

@ThomasVitale I'm circling back to this issue. Would you have some time to walk me through? I think I understand what are you doing, but I'd like to be 100% sure I understand it. Also to make the next iteration of this extension work with WSL2.

[ThomasVitale]

@garbas thanks so much for looking into this! I'm available for a chat. I sent you a message on the Flox Slack workspace and share my contacts

[ThomasVitale]

I tried again the procedure after updating to the latest Flox version (1.6.0) and got some partial success. I don't know if the fix came with Flox or other environmental factor, though.

Successful Scenario (which previously failed)

1. [WSL2] Go into a directory where a Flox environment is defined
2. [WSL2] Run flox activate
3. [WSL2] Run code .
4. [Windows] VSCode is opened automatically on top of the WSL2 file system (SSH-based). The session is correctly running inside the Flox environment.

Unsuccessful Scenario

1. [WSL2] Go into a directory where a Flox environment is defined
2. [WSL2] Run code .
3. [Windows] VSCode is opened automatically on top of the WSL2 file system (SSH-based).
4. [Windows] Use the Flox VSCode extension to "Activate Environment".
5. [Windows] VSCode is shutdown and never reopened (similar result of what reported in Activating environment from extension while using remote/ssh seeems to crash Code #69).

Additional Scenario

If the Flox environment comes with a VS Code package (+ optional extensions), things go a bit differently. I guess that's the intended behaviour for GUI apps on WSL2, but not a great experience (I guess it can only be improved in the WSL2 project itself). I wanted to include this scenario just to show another option to use Flox in WSL2 with VS Code.

1. [WSL2] Go into a directory where a Flox environment is defined
2. [WSL2] Run flox activate
3. [WSL2] Run code .
4. [WSL2] After accepting a prompt warning you about using GUI apps in WSL2, VSCode is opened automatically from within WSL2 and presented as a Linux desktop app (no Windows nor SSH involved). The session is correctly running inside the Flox environment.