Jupyter Notebook in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Here’s a procedure for enabling Jupyter Notebooks to run on a Windows brower from a Linux environment on the same machine.

Whilst setting up a new environment in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) running Ubuntu 22.04, I wanted to enable Jupyter Notebooks to run in Firefox in Windows. Here’s how I was able to achieve this:

Step 1: Install Jupyter Notebooks

Open the Linux command prompt, activate your environment, then enter the following command:

$ sudo apt install jupyter-core

Normally, you should be able to then enter the command jupyter notebook to activate the programme. In this case, it will render an error “Jupyter command ‘jupyter-notebook’ not found”. That’s okay.

The next step is to run a force-reinstall via pip:

$ pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall --no-cache-dir jupyter

Step 2: Edit the BASH configuration file

At the command prompt, enter the following command:

$ nano ~/.bashrc

This will open up the BASH configuration file.

Add the following code to the top of the file after line 8:

alias jupyter-notebook="~/.local/bin/jupyter-notebook --no-browser"

And add the following code to the last line of the file:

export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

Save the file and exit via Ctrl + X.

Step 3: Launch Jupyter

You should now be able to enter $ jupyter notebook into the command prompt. You will need to navigate to a preferred browser in Windows and go to http://localhost:8888. The first time you log on, the following screen will be visible:

The tokin will be available from the WSL terminal. Use the tokin to set-up a password. If completed successfully, Jupyter Notebook should be visible from your browser window:

An instance of Jupyter Lab should also be available from http://localhost:8888/lab when activated with the $ jupyter lab command from the WSL terminal.

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