Attempting to install via wsl --import fails

[jarrodsfarrell]

Bug description

Attempting to install a fresh copy of NixOS-WSL fails with wsl emitting help-text. Tried creating ~\NixOS\ myself then running the command with no change.

To Reproduce

PS ~> wsl --install --no-distribution
The operation completed successfully.
PS ~\Downloads> cd .\Downloads\
PS ~\Downloads> wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
[wsl help text, no errors given]

WSL version

WSL version: 2.3.26.0
Kernel version: 5.15.167.4-1
WSLg version: 1.0.65
MSRDC version: 1.2.5620
Direct3D version: 1.611.1-81528511
DXCore version: 10.0.26100.1-240331-1435.ge-release
Windows version: 10.0.19045.5247

PS ~> wsl
[Ubuntu MOTD]
jarrod@Gamma:/mnt/~/Downloads$ sha256sum nixos-wsl.tar.gz
576f2dda94b0dde278cd9ebbdf04b53bd9c174fba5dd4e98bd9af227dd97fc24  nixos-wsl.tar.gz

Corresponds to this release

[nzbr]

I am unfortunately not able to reproduce that (with the same hash for nixos-wsl.tar.gz, I am however already on WSL 2.4.5.0). Usually when WSL just prints its help text, that means that there's some sort of error with the syntax of the command you ran, not with a distro. I copy-pasted your command (just replaced the name, because NixOS is already taken on my system) and that run through just fine:

󰍲  nzbr@PULSAR
PS T:\> sha256sum.exe .\nixos-wsl.tar.gz
\576f2dda94b0dde278cd9ebbdf04b53bd9c174fba5dd4e98bd9af227dd97fc24 *.\\nixos-wsl.tar.gz

󰍲  nzbr@PULSAR
PS T:\> wsl --import nix-dbg $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2
Der Vorgang wurde erfolgreich beendet.

As this seems to be a general WSL problem to me, rather than a NixOS one, you could try opening an issue in microsoft/WSL. Maybe someone there knows what might be the problem here

[jarrodsfarrell]

Figured it out and it's a subtle syntax issue. So this command does not work:

wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS\ nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2

But this one does.

wsl --import NixOS $env:USERPROFILE\NixOS nixos-wsl.tar.gz --version 2

It's the leading backslash that causes wsl to fail. I'll do a quick online PR to fix it.

[jarrodsfarrell]

Originally I thought this was an issue with my name containing a space, but nope after removing the leading backslash it works fine. No surrounding with quotes needed either if I'm using $env:USERPROFILE.