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I was forced to use WSL on Windows 10 to install the Python library Cartopy on my Windows machine correctly. It is way easier in a Linux-distribution, so I chose Ubuntu 20.04 WSL2.

As a consequence, I created a virtual Python environment via WSL in my project folder via python -m venv linux-venv. The problem is now that all binaries/executables were compiled for the WSL-distribution and are thus not selectable from VS Code started from within Windows 10.

Consequently, I installed VS Code on WSL and started it from there. My hope was that I can then manually select the right interpreter path linux-venv/bin/python from my project's root directory. Unfortunately, it does not work either, even though I'm doing this from VS Code running on WSL:

select interpreter path

Clicking on my desired interpreter linux-venv/bin/python, the following error message is displayed:

error message

If I try to "browse to my desired executable" instead, they are not displayed since solely ".exe" - file extensions are allowed:

browse1

Next, I can solely browse ".exe" - files, wherefore I cannot select the UNIX-compiled executables.

browse2

Conclusion:

It does not seem possible at the moment to select a UNIX-compiled interpreter in VS Code properly on a Windows 10 - machine, not even using WSL.

Since the aforementioned Python library Cartopy solely works well on UNIX-systems, I need to install my virtual environment from WSL.

In order to continue with my project, I would need to be able to select the UNIX-compiled interpreter, but I cannot.

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  • Have you tried WSL extension : code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2019/09/03/wsl2 Commented Mar 12, 2023 at 10:00
  • I have this extension installed. Yet, it does not help solve my above-mentioned problem. In the associated blog posts of your WSL2-link, the "selected interpreter" is always preselected and "just works". It seems to me as if they just use the global Python environment instead a local virtual environment. At least I don't see anything like how it is activated within VS Code via e.g. "select interpreter". Commented Mar 12, 2023 at 10:12
  • Do you use the installed extension ? If yes, you should be able to select any interpreter in WSL, including virtual environments. Commented Mar 12, 2023 at 10:47
  • What version of python are you using? Is this documentation useful? Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 6:01
  • The Python version is 3.9x. The docs are useful, but I just realized that if I select an existing workspace, the remote-connection to WSL vanishes (button in the bottom-left). Probably this happens, when the workspace had been created from within Windows. Could this be? Commented Mar 13, 2023 at 8:30

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Problem Analysis:

I figured out what the actual problems were in order to make it work according to the kindly shared WSL-docs by @Philippe and @JialeDu:

  1. The VS-Code Workspace had been created from within Windows 10.
  2. The Python virtual environment (venv) was installed via a WSL2 (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS) - CLI, yet into a project folder on the C-Drive on Windows 10.

Consequently, starting VS-Code from within WSL or clicking on the "remote button" provided by the WSL-extension was fine, but when I opened the project it was still located on the Windows-C-drive. This silently broke the remote connection to WSL and left me working in VS-Code in Windows just like normally.

Obviously, this made it impossible to search for UNIX-executables and even select them, since I was effectively working on Windows, not on Linux (WSL).

Solution:

  1. Migrate the entire project folder from the C-Drive C:\Users\username\Projects\project_name to the actual Ubuntu-WSL-System in /home/username/projects/project_name.
  2. Create the virtual environment anew in the project folder via python3 -m venv linux-venv.
  3. Install all requirements again in that environment just created.
  4. Install the VS-Code Python Extension in the current WSL-version of VS-Code
  5. Open a Python-file and select the interpreter of the venv just configured

This time, it worked since I was effectively working on a true Linux environment/distribution with all packages and binaries installed within WSL.

Not only did I have to migrate the entire project on the WSL-distribution's directory tree, but I also had to reinstall the requirements and binaries of the virtual environments from there.

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2 Comments

I dont think you have to migrate the entire project folder from the C-Drive to WSL, as you can access /mnt/c/Users/username/Projects/project_name from WSL
In VS Code, the remote connection to WSL always vanished if I chose to open the folder on the C-Drive. Even after removing the workspace file etc.

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