#1844: Fix VSCode installation hanging in WSL (#1932)

Co-authored-by: Jörg Hohwiller <hohwille@users.noreply.github.com>

Author: satorus

CHANGELOG.adoc

@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ Release with new features and bugfixes:
 * https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/1685[#1685]: Add Nest CLI to IDEasy commandlets
 * https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/1882[#1882]: Add AWS CDK to IDEasy commandlets
 * https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/800[#800]: Fix infinite recursion in Sonar start/stop on macOS
+* https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/issues/1844[#1844]: Fix vscode installation hanging indefinitely in WSL Linux environments
 
 The full list of changes for this release can be found in https://github.com/devonfw/IDEasy/milestone/44?closed=1[milestone 2026.05.001].
 

cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/os/SystemInfo.java

@@ -56,4 +56,12 @@ default boolean isLinux() {
     return getOs() == OperatingSystem.LINUX;
   }
 
+  /**
+   * @return {@code true} if we are running inside WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
+   */
+  default boolean isWsl() {
+
+    return false;
+  }
+
 }

cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/os/SystemInfoImpl.java

@@ -32,13 +32,15 @@ public class SystemInfoImpl implements SystemInfo {
 
   private final SystemArchitecture architecture;
 
+  private final boolean wsl;
+
   /**
    * The constructor.
    */
   private SystemInfoImpl() {
 
     this(System.getProperty(PROPERTY_OS_NAME).trim(), System.getProperty(PROPERTY_OS_VERSION).trim(),
-        resolveArchitecture());
+        resolveArchitecture(), System.getenv("WSL_DISTRO_NAME") != null || System.getenv("WSL_INTEROP") != null);
   }
 
   private static String resolveArchitecture() {
@@ -70,12 +72,26 @@ private static String resolveArchitecture() {
    */
   public SystemInfoImpl(String osName, String osVersion, String architectureName) {
 
+    this(osName, osVersion, architectureName, false);
+  }
+
+  /**
+   * The constructor.
+   *
+   * @param osName the {@link #getOsName() OS name}
+   * @param osVersion the {@link #getOsVersion() OS version}.
+   * @param architectureName the {@link #getArchitectureName() architecture name}.
+   * @param wsl {@code true} if running inside WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).
+   */
+  public SystemInfoImpl(String osName, String osVersion, String architectureName, boolean wsl) {
+
     super();
     this.osName = osName;
     this.osVersion = VersionIdentifier.of(osVersion);
     this.architectureName = architectureName;
     this.os = OperatingSystem.ofName(this.osName);
     this.architecture = detectArchitecture(this.architectureName);
+    this.wsl = wsl;
   }
 
   private static SystemArchitecture detectArchitecture(String architectureName) {
@@ -117,6 +133,12 @@ public SystemArchitecture getArchitecture() {
     return this.architecture;
   }
 
+  @Override
+  public boolean isWsl() {
+
+    return this.wsl;
+  }
+
   @Override
   public String toString() {
 

cli/src/main/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/tool/vscode/Vscode.java

@@ -93,6 +93,9 @@ public boolean installPlugin(ToolPluginDescriptor plugin, Step step, ProcessCont
   @Override
   protected void configureToolArgs(ProcessContext pc, ProcessMode processMode, List<String> args) {
 
+    if (this.context.getSystemInfo().isWsl()) {
+      pc.withEnvVar("DONT_PROMPT_WSL_INSTALL", "1");
+    }
     Path vsCodeConf = this.context.getWorkspacePath().resolve(".vscode/.userdata");
     pc.addArg("--new-window");
     pc.addArg("--user-data-dir=" + vsCodeConf);

cli/src/test/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/os/SystemInfoImplTest.java

@@ -84,4 +84,26 @@ void testLinuxDetection() {
     assertThat(systemInfo.toString()).isEqualTo("linux@x64(Linux[3.13.0-74-generic]@x64)");
   }
 
+  /** Test {@link SystemInfoMock#LINUX_WSL_X64} is detected as WSL and Linux. */
+  @Test
+  void testWslDetection() {
+
+    // act
+    SystemInfo systemInfo = SystemInfoMock.LINUX_WSL_X64;
+    // assert
+    assertThat(systemInfo.isWsl()).isTrue();
+    assertThat(systemInfo.isLinux()).isTrue();
+    assertThat(systemInfo.isWindows()).isFalse();
+  }
+
+  /** Test that plain Linux is not detected as WSL. */
+  @Test
+  void testNonWslLinuxIsNotWsl() {
+
+    // act
+    SystemInfo systemInfo = SystemInfoMock.LINUX_X64;
+    // assert
+    assertThat(systemInfo.isWsl()).isFalse();
+  }
+
 }

cli/src/test/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/os/SystemInfoMock.java

@@ -20,7 +20,10 @@ public class SystemInfoMock {
   /** {@link OperatingSystem#LINUX} with {@link SystemArchitecture#X64}. */
   public static final SystemInfo LINUX_X64 = new SystemInfoImpl("Linux", "3.13.0-74-generic", "x64");
 
-  private static final List<SystemInfo> MOCKS = List.of(WINDOWS_X64, MAC_X64, MAC_ARM64, LINUX_X64);
+  /** {@link OperatingSystem#LINUX} with {@link SystemArchitecture#X64} running inside WSL. */
+  public static final SystemInfo LINUX_WSL_X64 = new SystemInfoImpl("Linux", "5.15.153.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2", "x86_64", true);
+
+  private static final List<SystemInfo> MOCKS = List.of(WINDOWS_X64, MAC_X64, MAC_ARM64, LINUX_X64, LINUX_WSL_X64);
 
   public static SystemInfo of(String osString) {
 

cli/src/test/java/com/devonfw/tools/ide/tool/vscode/VscodeTest.java

@@ -1,13 +1,17 @@
 package com.devonfw.tools.ide.tool.vscode;
 
 import java.util.ArrayList;
+import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.List;
+import java.util.Map;
 
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
 
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.AbstractIdeContextTest;
+import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.AbstractIdeTestContext;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.IdeTestContext;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.context.ProcessContextTestImpl;
+import com.devonfw.tools.ide.os.SystemInfoMock;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.process.ProcessContext;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.process.ProcessMode;
 import com.devonfw.tools.ide.process.ProcessResult;
@@ -114,6 +118,34 @@ private void checkInstallation(IdeTestContext context) {
     assertThat(context).logAtSuccess().hasMessageContaining("Successfully installed vscode in version 1.92.1");
   }
 
+  @Test
+  void testConfigureToolArgsSetsWslEnvVarOnWsl() {
+
+    // arrange
+    IdeTestContext context = newContext(PROJECT_VSCODE);
+    context.setSystemInfo(SystemInfoMock.LINUX_WSL_X64);
+    Vscode commandlet = new Vscode(context);
+    EnvCapturingProcessContext pc = new EnvCapturingProcessContext(context);
+    // act
+    commandlet.configureToolArgs(pc, ProcessMode.DEFAULT, List.of());
+    // assert
+    assertThat(pc.getEnvVar("DONT_PROMPT_WSL_INSTALL")).isEqualTo("1");
+  }
+
+  @Test
+  void testConfigureToolArgsDoesNotSetWslEnvVarOnNonWsl() {
+
+    // arrange
+    IdeTestContext context = newContext(PROJECT_VSCODE);
+    context.setSystemInfo(SystemInfoMock.LINUX_X64);
+    Vscode commandlet = new Vscode(context);
+    EnvCapturingProcessContext pc = new EnvCapturingProcessContext(context);
+    // act
+    commandlet.configureToolArgs(pc, ProcessMode.DEFAULT, List.of());
+    // assert
+    assertThat(pc.getEnvVar("DONT_PROMPT_WSL_INSTALL")).isNull();
+  }
+
   /**
    * Test double for {@link Vscode} that captures CLI arguments passed to {@link #runTool(ProcessContext, ProcessMode, List)}
    * so tests can assert command construction without spawning an external process.
@@ -137,4 +169,29 @@ public ProcessResult runTool(ProcessContext pc, ProcessMode processMode, List<St
       return new ProcessResultImpl("code", "code", 0, List.of());
     }
   }
+
+  /**
+   * {@link ProcessContextTestImpl} subclass that captures calls to {@link #withEnvVar(String, String)} for test assertions.
+   */
+  private static class EnvCapturingProcessContext extends ProcessContextTestImpl {
+
+    private final Map<String, String> capturedEnvVars = new HashMap<>();
+
+    private EnvCapturingProcessContext(IdeTestContext context) {
+
+      super(context);
+    }
+
+    @Override
+    public ProcessContext withEnvVar(String key, String value) {
+
+      this.capturedEnvVars.put(key, value);
+      return super.withEnvVar(key, value);
+    }
+
+    String getEnvVar(String key) {
+
+      return this.capturedEnvVars.get(key);
+    }
+  }
 }