Ubuntu is now available on the Windows Store Linux party available for Windows Insiders

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We already know by now that Microsoft is best friends with open source. The company launched lots of projects on GitHub and it also recently became a Cloud Foundry Foundation Gold Member.

During the Build 2017, Microsoft even shocked the world by announcing the fact that it would bring Linux distributions to the Windows Store.

Some of the SUSE-based distros have recently reached the Windows Store just as previously promised, but sadly there’s no Ubuntu or Fedora yet. While Red Hat’s distro is still missing, Canonical’s one finally arrives.

Ubuntu officially joins the Windows Store Linux party

Just like it happened with SUSE, this is only available for the Windows Insiders only, for now. The reason is the fact that for installing a distro from the Windows Store you have to be running at least the build 16215 of Microsoft’s desktop operating system.

This will be short-lived because once Windows 10 Fall Creators Update goes gold, it will also be available to the non-insiders as well.

For making this work, users also have to enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux feature in Windows 10. But unfortunately, this will not be possible for Windows 10 S users who will never be able to benefit from this feature. They can do so, only if they decide to switch to Windows 10 Pro.

Windows Store holds the Xenial Xerus version of Ubuntu

This is not the most modern version of Ubuntu, but it still works fine. This particular version of the distro is LTS, and this means that it will get long term support which is very beneficial for users. In other words, Canonical will be supporting this version of Ubuntu until 2012 which makes it a perfect candidate for the Windows Store.

In case you’re running an Insider build of Windows 10 that is at least 16215 you will be able to access Ubuntu from the Windows Store. But if you are using Ubuntu via the older method, this version will not replace it, and they’ll only run side by side. In this case, you may want to uninstall the previous version.

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