ladybird/Documentation/BuildInstructionsWindows.md
sno2 36f6e09f7e Documentation: Update WSL QEMU Installation Requirements
As Evil stated in the Discord, WSL users must install the DLL
libraries with their QEMU Installation or else they will receive
obscure errors about the syntax of the Meta/run.sh file as shown in
SerenityOS#14033.
2022-12-03 16:04:38 -07:00

54 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown

# Setting up a development environment on Windows
SerenityOS can be built and run under WSL Version 2.
WSL Version 1 is not supported since Version 1 does not support ext2, which is needed for the setup.
WSL Version 2 requires Windows 10 version 2004 or higher, with OS Build 19041 or greater. Here is a guide on how to
[get WSL2](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10).
Once installed, you will need to make sure the distribution you want to use (and the new default) is using Version 2:
- `wsl -l -v` lists distros and versions,<br/>
- `wsl --set-version <distro> <version>` is used to convert a distro to another version, and<br/>
- `wsl --set-default-version 2` will set the default version for all new distros (if desired.)<br/>
Next, go to [BuildInstructions.md](https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/blob/master/Documentation/BuildInstructions.md#prerequisites)
and follow the instructions for your chosen Linux environment, to get the needed build tools.
## Note on filesystems
WSL2 filesystem performance for IO heavy tasks (such as compiling a large C++ project) on the host Windows filesystem is
pretty bad. See [this issue on the WSL GitHub project](https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197#issuecomment-604592340)
for details.
The recommendation from the Microsoft team on that issue is:
> If it's at all possible, store your projects in the Linux file system in WSL2.
In practice, this means cloning and building the project to somewhere such as `/home/username/serenity`. You can then
access the linux filesystem at `\\wsl$`, so for example, the project would be at `\\wsl$\home\username\serenity`.
## Setting up QEMU
Grab the latest QEMU binaries from [here](https://www.qemu.org/download/#windows) and install them. At a minimum you
will need to install the tools, the system emulators for i386 and x86_64, and
the DLL libraries.
![QEMU Components](QEMU_Components.png)
Run `Meta/serenity.sh run` to build and run SerenityOS as usual.
### Hardware acceleration
The steps above will run QEMU in software virtualization mode, which is very slow.
QEMU supports hardware acceleration on Windows via the [Windows Hypervisor Platform](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/api/)
(WHPX).
Enable the Windows Hypervisor Platform feature, either using "Turn Windows features on or off", or by running the
following command in an elevated PowerShell session: \
`dism /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:HypervisorPlatform`
![WHPX Windows Feature](WHPX_Feature.png)
You may have to reboot after enabling the WHPX feature.
Afterwards you can start the VM with `Meta/serenity.sh run` as usual.