How to compile faster with WSL 2

Note: This is for Windows only

The steps on the Compile-firmware page work fine for compiling, but you may find it takes around 35 minutes each time. In this guide I will show you how to get that time down to 2 seconds - 1 minute depending on your hardware.

Step 1) Download Ubuntu from the windows store

Step 2) once its opened open up a windows terminal and run wsl -l -v

check it says version 2

If it does not, then run: wsl --set-default-version 2 followed by running wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2

Step 3) Once that is done, open the Ubuntu app again (make sure you have set it up so you get to the console in it)

Step 4) Go to docker on windows and go to settings -> resources -> WSL Integration

Step 5) Toggle Ubuntu on (if its not there, click refresh)

Step 6) Open up your windows file explorer ang in the address bar go to \\wsl$\

Step 7) navigate to Ubuntu/home/{username}/

Step 8) copy your portapack-mayhem folder into your dir above

Step 9) Confirm your Ubuntu WSL instance can see it by going cd ~/portapack-mayhem

Step 10) If its there then you are good to go. Time to run docker docker run -it -v ~/portapack-mayhem:/havoc portapack-dev

Step 11) Profit! It should be compiling super fast now!

You can then set a network share up to your \\wsl$\Ubuntu\home\{username}\portapack-mayhem folder and continue to edit the files from within windows.

Errors While Compiling?

If there were errors in the compiling aspect you can follow these steps.

After Step 5 do this:

Step 5.1) Open Ubuntu

Step 5.2) Do a sudo git clone --recurse-submodules sudo git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/portapack-mayhem/mayhem-firmware.git

(Note if it still doesn't compile, you might need to run git submodule update --init --recursive)

Step 5.3) Give permission for the portapack-mayhem directory to your user

1. Run command whoami
2. Run command sudo chown -R my_user:my_usergroup /home/{username}/portapack-mayhem (Note: Replace "my_user:my_usergroup" with the return from "whoami")

Step 5.4) Create "build" folder

1. Run command cd portapack-mayhem
2. Run command ls (Note how there's no build folder)
3. Run command mkdir build
4. Run command ls (Note how a build folder is present)

Prerequisites for Compiling

Step 5.5) Prevent 'python/r' not found error

1. Run command git config --global core.autocrlf false.

Or omit the false to see it's status.

Compile

Step 5.6)

1. Run command docker build -t portapack-dev -f dockerfile-nogit .
2. Run command docker run -it -v ~/portapack-mayhem:/havoc portapack-dev

Duration of the first compiling / building phase

On my system it took 8 minutes, and 43 seconds to complete, this would vary based on your system's hardware and configurations

Duration of the second compiling / building phase

On the second compile, I made changes on the "ui_geomap.cpp" & "ui_geomap.hpp". These were no more that 25 lines of changes made collectively. And this was compiled in 3 seconds on my system.

More Info on WSL 2?

Please refer to these official links form Microsoft:

1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual#step-3---enable-virtual-machine-feature
2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/troubleshooting