Start in user home

[fpqc]

Hi, wondering if you can tell the wslbridge to start in the user's home.

The built-in bash.exe in system32 allows you to start it with
bash.exe ~ -c "linux program to start"

Is there a way to start the wslbridge in a specific lxss directory?

[mintty]

I was about to ask the same, caused by the discussion in mintty/wsltty#3

[fpqc]

@mintty I know. I realized that the correct place to ask was upstream here.

[rprichard]

I think I agree that there should be some option for controlling the start dir.

[fpqc]

@rprichard By the way, this project is amazing.Was wondering if there is a way to make it work using ttys rather than ptys in WSL.

[rprichard]

@fpqc What do you mean by tty support?

Regarding the feature request, there are three kinds of paths wslbridge could accept for the startdir: a Windows path, a Cygwin path, or a WSL path.

My first instinct is that only WSL paths are worth handling -- the others can be accommodated by setting the starting directory before invoking wslbridge. Maybe wslbridge could have a -C<WSLPATH> option. If the first path component of WSLPATH is ~ or ~user, wslbridge could replace it with the appropriate directory. (Someone invoking wslbridge from Cygwin bash would have to be a bit careful. Running wslbridge -C ~ from bash would do the wrong thing, because Cygwin would interpret ~ before wslbridge.)

[rprichard]

wslbridge could also do things like substitute environment variables in WSLPATH, but that strikes me as unnecessary.

[fpqc]

@rprichard Only one worth doing is a WSL path. The other two can be legitimately achieved with the "start in" function of Windows.

[rprichard]

I added a -C option that changes the working directory before exec'ing the child process. It has special code to interpret a ~ at the start, so passing -C~ to wslbridge will start the child in the WSL home directory.

[fpqc]

Cool!