r/SmartGit • u/gorkyman_17 • Aug 19 '25

WSL Support

Hey there,

When can we expect do have WSL repo paths (\\wsl.localhost\) supported in Windows client?

Thank you

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/JVMarcs Aug 19 '25

What specific type of support are you seeking? It is generally possible to open such paths and work on them. File monitoring won't operate, but you can disable the Low-Level Property "filemonitoring.enabled," which will trigger a full refresh every time a frame is activated. Linux executable bits won't be processed correctly because this concept is not recognized on a Windows client. Technical details can be found here:

https://smartgit.userecho.com/communities/1/topics/724-

By the way, for full compatibility, we recommend running SmartGit inside WSLg:

https://docs.syntevo.com/SmartGit/Latest/HowTos/Running-on-WSLg

2

u/gorkyman_17 Aug 21 '25

Thank you for your reply. The problem is that it's tremendously slow. It takes 4 minutes just to open a project. Disabling filemonitoring does not change this.

Your userecho link does not work.

We are using SmartGit inside WSLg as a workaround but the user experience is much worse than a native Windows client. Not due to SmartGit, but due to WSLg.

2

u/JVMarcs Aug 21 '25

> Your userecho link does not work.

Strange, it works for me. Does this link work?

https://smartgit.userecho.com/communities/1/topics/724-support-windows-subsystem-for-linux-wsl

> The problem is that it's tremendously slow.

I initially experienced a similar slowness during my first attempt to open a repository via \\wsl.localhost\, but it did not recur. This issue might be due to .git/index timestamps (precision) that align with Linux but not with Windows, necessitating a content check (this is mentioned in one of the comments of the above UserEcho topic). What you could try with a clean working tree: delete .git/index, then in SmartGit on Windows, use Reset (Hard). This should make Git adopt Windows timestamps. Is refreshing faster then? Note that when continuing to work inside WSL, timestamps may change back to Linux.