Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
194 lines (138 loc) · 6.69 KB

wsl-install.md

File metadata and controls

194 lines (138 loc) · 6.69 KB

pycrazywarm Installation via WSL 2

While the official documentation explicitly says that WSL isn't supported, there are some hoops we can jump through to get it working. I used Ubuntu 20.04 with ROS Noetic, but theoretically you could do something similar with Ubuntu 18.04 and ROS Melodic.

Table of Contents

  1. (Optional) Create a Separate Ubuntu Instance
  2. Install ROS
  3. Install pycrazyswarm
  4. Install crazyflie-clients-python
  5. Connect Your Windows USB Devices with WSL Devices

(Optional) Create a Separate Ubuntu Instance

If you don't already have the version of Ubuntu that you want installed, skip this and go to the next section. If you already have the version you'd like to install ROS with but would like to separate your ROS Ubuntu instance from your normal development Ubuntu instance, which I'd recommend if you want isolation from your normal WSL Ubuntu instance, keep reading.

To create a fresh version of your current Ubuntu distribution (20.04 for me) without all your packages and files, go to where your Ubuntu was installed. For me, this was something like C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu20.04onWindows_2004.2022.8.0_x64__79rhkp1fndgsc. You probably need to be running whatever you're running as administrator to be able to see WindowsApps. In there, you should see a very large file named install.tar.gz. This is the fresh image we'd like use. Now, go to where your current WSL instance is installed. For me, $USER\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu20.04onWindows_sldkfjlskdjf.

Make a new folder in this directory of the name of the new instance you want to install:

mkdir $USER\AppData\Local\Packages\CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu20.04onWindows_ROS

This is our install location. Now import the fresh image as a new WSL instance by running:

wsl.exe --import Ubuntu-20.04-ROS path\to\install\location \path\to\install.tar.gz

Filling in the paths as they're set up on your system. You should be able to see if that worked by doing:

wsl -l

Which should give you something like this:

PS C:\Users\ZachJW> wsl -l
Windows Subsystem for Linux Distributions:
Ubuntu-20.04_ROS (Default)
Ubuntu-20.04

NOTE: you might also have to set up the new user account by following this guide. I also had to change the default user slightly differently by following this stackoverflow answer.

Install ROS

Install your desired version of ROS on WSL2 with this guy's blog. To get Gazebo working, you'll need a few environment variables set. Add the following lines to your ~/.bashrc file.

export DISPLAY=$(ip route list default | awk '{print $3}'):0
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_INDIRECT=1
export GAZEBO_IP=127.0.0.1

Part of these variables will also set up our X-server. To start that, you'll need to open the .xlaunch file you saved when going through the tutorial with the right x11 configuration.

roslaunch gazebo_ros mud_world.launch

To double check you have that running, install x11-apps from the apt package manager:

sudo apt install x11-apps
xclock

If everything's working together there, you should see a little clock window pop up.

References:

Install pycrazyswarm

Clone the pycrazyswarm repo:

git clone https://github.com/USC-ACTLab/crazyswarm

Follow the installation instructions. Then test the simulation by doing:

cd ros_ws/src/crazyswarm/scripts
python hello_world.py --sim

You should see a window pop up with a matplotlib figure showing a dot go up and down. Make sure your X-server is running first. Add non-root USB permissions by going to the top of the crazyswarm repo and running:

./pc_permissions.sh

References:

Install crazyflie-clients-python

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/bitcraze/crazyflie-clients-python

Follow the installation instructions. See if it worked by running:

cfclient

Connect your Windows USB devices with WSL devices

If you want to actually connect to the crazyflie to flash firmware onto it or get its radio address, you'll need to first have the dongle plugged into your laptop. If you go to your Device Manager, you should see it. The only issue here is that your WSL instance can't see this device, so you'll have to install a package that'll do this for us.

First, we need to install the latest usbipd-win on Windows by grabbing it from here. Then follow the instructions to actually connect the device.

NOTE: you'll have to have your default distro be your ROS distro since usbipd-win will just use that one.

References:

Check if that worked by going to your administrative cmd.exe and doing:

usbipd list

You should see something like:

1-2    1915:7777    Crazyradio PA USB Dongle      Shared 
...

Then to attach the windows busid to your WSL USB busid, do:

usbipd wsl attach --busid 1-2

Then go to wsl and run lsusb and you should see this somewhere in the list to see if it worked:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1915:7777 Nordic Semiconductor ASA Crazyradio PA USB Dongle

Miscellaneous Tips

  • Windows Terminal is nice to be able to switch between different WSL versions and terminals.

  • If you'd like to more easily access your windows folders, you can use symbolic links to jump more easily between linux and windows without having to go through like 10 folders, e.g.

    cd ~ 
ln -s /mnt/c/zjw/Documents/Research/ Research