Opening a web browser from Java apps in WSL

Linux CLI tools typically rely on xdg-open or fallback to $BROWSER environment variable to open the default browser, usually for OAuth authentication to authorise the CLI tool without using a permanent credential. Java apps behave differently by trying common browser executables in $PATH if the default browser could not be located. To launch a web browser from a Java app in WSL, simply add a symlink in “/usr/bin/“ that points to the browser executable in Windows, this way you don’t have to install a web browser in WSL.

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GnuPG 2.5 for Windows is now 64-bit only

After updating GnuPG to 2.5.16 using Chocolatey, I wasn’t able to sign commit in WSL with pinentry error. The “$HOME/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf” was previously configured with pinentry-program "/mnt/c/Program Files (x86)/gnupg/bin/pinentry-basic.exe" which is now an invalid path. I updated it to:

pinentry-program "/mnt/c/Program Files/GnuPG/bin/pinentry-basic.exe"

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