The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a great feature introduced in Windows 10.
Is a compatibility layer for running Linux binary executables natively on Windows 10, and allows the use of a rather real linux installation, without using a virtual machine.

The subsystem has some limitation, like a poor support for fuse (useful for forensic image mounting) but from my point of view, the worst lack is a very limited terminal emulator.

Luckily, there is MinTTY, a terminal emulator based on code from PuTTY 0.60 by Simon Tatham, that works well on Cygwin, MSYS or Msys2 and WSL.

Features

Terminal display features

  • Xterm-compatible terminal emulation, coverage of DEC VT300 series terminal features and more.
  • 256 colours and True-Colour support.
  • Comprehensive character encoding support, including UTF-8 and wide character display.
  • Rich character attributes support, including italic, doubly underline, overline, strikeout, rapid blinking.
  • Alternative fonts: simultaneous display of multiple fonts.
  • SIXEL graphics display support.
  • Emoji support.

Terminal input and interaction features

  • Character composition with full Unicode support, using dead keys and Compose key.
  • Windows IME support.
  • Support for all relevant mouse modes, including pixel-grained DEC locator mode.
  • Easy copy & paste.
  • Drag & drop of text, files and folders.
  • Ability to open files and URLs with Ctrl+click.
  • Small program size and quick scrolling.

Window handling features and desktop integration

  • Colour schemes / Theme file support.
  • Virtual Tabs / session switcher and launcher.
  • Taskbar tasks (“jump list”) configuration.
  • Flexible fullscreen, fullsize and border options.
  • Screen and scrollback buffer search.
  • User interface language localization support.
  • Window transparency, including glass effect.
  • Multiple monitor support, changing DPI support.

Configuration features and system support

  • Native Windows user interface with a simple options dialog.
  • Flexible configuration and resource folder options.
  • Options stored in a text file. No registry entries.
  • Switchable terminal logging, switchable character information.
  • Running on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10.

Installation

You can install wsltty using the standalone installer, available at this link: https://github.com/mintty/wsltty/releases.

Furthermore, if you are a brave programmer, you can install from source.

Simply clone the github repository:

git clone https://github.com/mintty/wsltty.git

and (with Cygwin correctly installed) run make, then make install

More information and downloads