NSL - WSL-style Linux machines for Linux
Show HN: NSL – WSL for Linux
NSL brings the WSL experience to Linux, letting you run any distro as a persistent machine on your host. Each machine is a full systemd-nspawn container in a lightweight VM, with your home directory, ports, and Wayland apps seamlessly integrated. Choose from seven signed distros, including Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora. Use `nsl` for a login shell or `nsl run` for one-off commands. For untrusted software, `--isolated` provides a separate VM. NSL keeps your host clean—no extra packages or permission changes.
Keep the host atomic. Work in any distro.
- naman_307
Is the VM layer mostly for host hygiene, or are you also treating the instances as a real security boundary when something untrusted (deps or agent-written code) runs inside?
- rao-v
I have to say this is nice packaging. It is weirdly not obvious how nice it is to cleanly use a different “machine” inside your desktop.
I never thought I’d prefer WSL to even my MacBook for working with remote servers and dev but somehow I do.
I of course know the many ways to roll something like this for myself, yes dev containers are better for many things etc. but it’s wierd how good the ergonomics of a WSL like container are.
- 0x457
I'm confused why VM + systemd-nspawn? From my understaing WSL 2 runs a single VM + something like systemd-nspawn per "linux installation", but it runs a VM because it needs linux kernel. Why not just do systemd-nspawn if you alread on linux?
- thayne
How does this compare to distrobox?
- bee_rider
The name WSL has always struck me as a bit back area (LSW would seem to make more sense, since it is a Linux subsystem for Windows). I guess they mean it as a Windows Subsystem for Linuxing.
Anyway, should this be called LSL or WSLL? Or maybe LSWSL.