Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is set to become an official Linux distribution for Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a move that will make it easier for users to discover and install RHEL on Windows.

The announcement, made by Red Hat and Microsoft on November 19, will see Red Hat deliver a RHEL distro image for WSL in the coming months. The image will be shipped with a new .tar-based WSL distro architecture designed to improve the way WSL distros are packaged and installed.

The partnership is expected to benefit hybrid cloud deployments, allowing developers to build Linux apps on a Windows system and deploy on a RHEL environment, saving time and resources. According to Red Hat's Ron Pacheco, senior director of the RHEL ecosystem, this will be a significant advantage for developers and enterprise IT organizations.