Put simply, Linux is a kernel; WSL is a partial emulator of that kernel with exceedingly little support for the programs that attract people to it.

As one popular example, there’s no support for anything graphical. I’ve heard a lot about how the feature is coming, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who got it to work.

Under-the-hood, you are still using the bloated Windows kernel, a now 30-year-old file system which was flawed to begin with (NTFS) or something newish that’s closely related to it, and you’re facing the same exhausting privacy violations that MS has been in hot water for; except you get to do it with bash instead.

I tried it on my laptop that had Windows 11 pre-installed, and I cannot imagine how they’re attracting anyone other than middle management and freshmen boot camp engineers with it. Apparently they found out that Ubuntu could be side-loaded in two minutes and panicked or something.

Addendum: WSL2 is apparently less of an emulator and more of a stripped-down VM, but again, how that appeals to me more than a full VM with drag-and-drop support is beyond me. Maybe someone else can give you a use case that’s worked for them.