Installing WSL

In order to build the ROM, the tools and dependencies that are needed can only be run on Linux. However, most people use Windows, creating a pretty big problem. Luckily, Microsoft provides functionality with Windows that allows you to run a Linux terminal through Windows itself. This is known as Windows Subsystem for Linux, or WSL for short. WSL is what most decomp hackers use for building their projects, and this part of the tutorial will cover installing it.

Installing WSL onto your computer is much simpler now, thanks to a recent Windows update. Before installing, make sure that your version of Windows is fully up to date (on either Windows 10 or 11). This will give you access to the command that streamlines the whole process for you.

Additionally, make sure that virtualization is enabled in your computer's BIOS. This can have different names depending on your CPU and motherboard vendor, but it's typically called either AMD SVM, AMD-V, or Intel VT-x.

Run a command line terminal as an administrator. Enter the command wsl --install. This will do most things that you need for installing WSL automatically, defaulting to the Ubuntu distribution. This will also automatically set your WSL version to WSL2, which is much faster than the version used in the past.

You can now restart your computer to fully finalize the installation.

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Alternative: Upgrading from WSL1

If you had already installed WSL in the past using the old method (such as through Rovert's May 2021 tutorial), you are very likely using WSL1, meaning that your compilation time will be much slower. To check, run wsl -l -v in a Command Prompt window. If your WSL version is listed as 1, follow these steps to upgrade:

1. Open Windows PowerShell as an administrator. Run this command to ensure that the virtual machine feature is enabled on your computer:
   • dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart
2. Restart your computer.
3. Download and run this installer, or if you're on an ARM64 machine, this one.
4. Enter wsl --set-default-version 2 in Command Prompt.
5. Finally, enter wsl --set-version <distro name> 2 as well, replacing <distro name> with the name of your distribution as shown from wsl -l -v before, such as Ubuntu.

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