Setting Up Cypress with WSL2 in Windows 11

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) has proven to be a game-changer for developers, allowing them to run a GNU/Linux environment directly on Windows, without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine. With Windows 11, WSL2 now supports GUI applications, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities, including running Cypress, a popular end-to-end testing framework for web applications.

This article will walk you through the process of setting up Cypress in WSL2 under Windows 11, highlighting some of the changes since GUIs were supported in WSL, and providing step-by-step instructions to get everything up and running. Step 1: Set Up WSL2

Before you start, make sure that you have WSL2 set up on your Windows 11 machine. The documentation on how to install WSL2 can be found in Microsoft’s official documentation. The key aspect to note is that WSL2 now comes with support for GUI applications, which is a significant change from the previous console-only experience. Step 2: Install Dependencies

Cypress has a few dependencies that need to be installed. As per the Cypress documentation, these dependencies are as follows:

• xvfb
• libgtk-3-0
• libnotify-dev
• libgconf-2-4
• libnss3
• libxss1
• libasound2
• libgbm-dev

In WSL2, you can install these dependencies with the following command:

sudo apt-get install -y xvfb libgtk-3-0 libnotify-dev libgconf-2-4 libnss3 libxss1 libasound2 libgbm-dev

Step 3: Set Up the Display Environment Variable

When running GUI applications in WSL2, you may need to set the $DISPLAY environment variable. This variable points to the X server that the GUI application should use for display.

Previously, you had to manually set the $DISPLAY variable to point to your X server. However, in recent versions of WSL2 with GUI support, this variable is set automatically. You can check its value using echo $DISPLAY. If it’s not set or incorrect, you can set it manually with export DISPLAY=:0, for example.

Step 4: Install Firefox

Cypress needs a browser to run the tests, and in this case, we’ll use Firefox. You can install Firefox in WSL2 using the following command:

sudo apt-get install firefox

Step 5: Install and Run Cypress

With all dependencies in place, you can now install Cypress. If you’re using npm, you can install Cypress with the following command:

npm install --dev cypress

To run your tests with Cypress, you can use the following command, specifying Firefox as the browser and setting a very long timeout:

npx cypress open --browser=firefox --config defaultCommandTimeout=999999999

This command will open the Cypress Test Runner and start running your tests in Firefox. Conclusion

Running Cypress in WSL2 under Windows 11 is a powerful setup that allows you to take advantage of the flexibility and power of Linux while staying within your Windows environment. The addition of GUI support in WSL2 has made this setup even more robust, opening up new possibilities for web application testing. Happy testing!