Building on Windows 11 using the Linux Subsystem
Since Windows 10, there is a new feature that allows any developer to quickly and easily run a complete Linux subsystem in Windows (WSL) and access it via a bash terminal. This gives developers full use of the entire Linux OS and all of the great existing Linux tools and programs. When Bash for Windows is up and running it feels like you ssh'd into a full Linux box, except the Linux distro is actually running alongside Windows locally.
The official Microsoft instruction to install WSL is https://msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl/install_guide; However, we will include our own instructions below.
Install the Ubuntu (WSL) in Windows 11
Open any one of Windows Terminal, Command Prompt (CMD) or PowerShell with elevated privileges. I.e. Search for Terminal, PowerShell, or CMD and select "Run As Administrator".
Execute the following commands in order:
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Hyper-V-All /all /norestart
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart
dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart
wsl.exe --install --no-distribution
wsl.exe --update
shutdown.exe /r /f /t 5
WSL is configured for to use half your physical RAM by default. Newer targets such as G4 and H7 may require 4GB memory or more. Use the Start-menu to search for and open WSL Settings. Increase WSL's Memory Size to at least 4096 if not already set. Alternatively, when building targets, use the -j parameter with the make command to reduce memory usage. Example: make -j 2 [target]. (Note, some targets such as F4 and F7 will compile with only 2GB.)
After reboot, open an elevated terminal again and run the following commands:
wsl.exe --install Ubuntu-24.04
After Ubuntu (WSL) is installed, use the Start Menu to search for and run Ubuntu 24.04. It may take some time for the menu index to update. Upon launching Ubuntu, you will be prompted to create a new username and password. Linux is case sensitive, so use a lowercase username.
It will be the developers option to create a project-folder. Although not necessary, some examples might be a folder named Git, Github, or My-Projects. In your bash terminal, create a folder with mkdir [foldername] and change to that folder with cd [foldername].
Example:
mkdir Git
cd Git
Once you have Ubuntu (WSL) bash running properly on Windows, you can follow the "Building in Ubuntu" instructions for building Betaflight.
Linux systems like Ubuntu use an administrator account named root which has privileged rights. Regular users can elevate to root privileges with the sudo command.
If your newly created user has issue with sudo or otherwise does not have privileges, please refer to option 2 or 3 here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/128094-add-remove-list-sudo-users-wsl-linux-distro-windows-10-a.html#option2
If you have Internet connectivity issues from within Ubuntu (WSL), then please solve using some of these methods: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=wsl%20no%20internet%20on%20public%20network.
Specifically substituting DNS resolution nameservers with known good DNS servers like 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare), 8.8.8.8 (Google), or 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS).
The file system mapping of WSL is mounted into Ubuntu 24.04 //wsl/localhost . They are accessible, but they are mounted with root:root permissions. This causes permission issues with a lot of things and leads to errors when trying to build Betaflight from a repository that was cloned in Linux on a local disk under Windows. Therefore, always access, modify and build from the Ubuntu bash terminal.
Example folder: \\wsl.localhost\Ubuntu-24.04\home\username\Git\betaflight.
It is not recommended to run WSL inside of a Windows VM (Hypervisor Guest) as the performance will be degraded. If you choose to do so, you will required to enable the Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or AMD-RVI option or similar in the hypervisor's VM options.