inav/docs/development/Building in Windows 10 or 11 with MSYS2.md

Building in Windows with MSYS2

Building with this method is not advised and should be used only if Windows Linux Subsystem can not be used. In all other cases all Windows users should be using Linux Subsystem (WSL) instead

• This environment does not require installing WSL, which may not be available or would get in the way of other virtualization and/or anti-cheat software
• It is also much faster to install and get set up because of its small size(~3.65 GB total after building hex file as of 6.0.0)

Setting up the environment

Download and install MSYS2

1. For 6.0.0, the last version that works is 20220603
   • 20220503 is also known to work
   • MSYS2 releases can be viewed at https://repo.msys2.org/distrib/x86_64/
   • Scroll all the way down for an executable, scroll halfway down for a self-extracting archive
2. Open an MSYS2 terminal by running C:\msys64\msys2_shell.cmd
3. In the newly opened shell, set up your work path
   • To paste commands, use "Shift+Insert" or Right-click and select "Paste"

mkdir /c/Workspace

Downloading and installing dependencies

Installing other dependencies:

pacman -S git ruby make cmake gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-libwinpthread-git unzip wget

• Note: If some fails to download, use the following command to install the rest without reinstalling everything:

pacman -S git ruby make cmake gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-libwinpthread-git unzip wget --needed

Download the INAV repository

Go to the working directory

cd /c/Workspace

Download INAV source code

• For master:

git clone https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav

• For a branch or a tag:

# "release_6.0.0" here can be the name of a branch or a tag 
git clone --branch release_6.0.0 https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav

• If you are internet speed or space restrained, you can also use --depth 1, which won't download the whole history, and --single-branch, which won't download other branches:

git clone --depth 1 --single-branch --branch release_6.0.0 https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav

This results in ~302 MB instead of ~468 MB download/install size(as of 6.0.0)

Installing xPack

1. Create xPack directory:

mkdir /c/Workspace/xpack
cd /c/Workspace/xpack

2. Find out which version of xPack you need for your INAV version:

# Currently, this is 10.2.1 for 6.0.0 and 10.3.1 for master
cat /c/Workspace/inav/cmake/arm-none-eabi-checks.cmake | grep "set(arm_none_eabi_gcc_version" | cut -d\" -f2

3. Find the version you need from the releases page, then either:

• Download the "...-win32-x64.zip" and copy the folder inside, or
• Right-click, choose "Copy link address" and paste it into the following commands:

cd /c/Workspace/xpack
# paste the link after "wget"
wget https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/arm-none-eabi-gcc-xpack/releases/download/v10.2.1-1.1/xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-10.2.1-1.1-win32-x64.zip
# paste the file name after "unzip"
unzip xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-10.2.1-1.1-win32-x64.zip
# you can delete the zip file after as it is no longer needed
rm xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-10.2.1-1.1-win32-x64.zip

3. This is important. Put the toolkit first before your path so that it is picked up ahead of any other versions that may be present on your system:

export PATH=/c/Workspace/xpack/xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-10.2.1-1.1/bin:$PATH

Building the INAV firmware

1. Create the build directory:

mkdir /c/Workspace/inav/build

2. Go into the build directory:

cd /c/Workspace/inav/build

3. Run cmake

• This may take a while. If you only want to test one target, remove the rest of the folders from C:\Workspace\inav\src\main\target\

cmake ..

4. Compile the firmware for your flight controller.

make MATEKH743

• The list of available targets in INAV can be found here: https://github.com/inavflight/inav/tree/master/src/main/target
• The generated hex file will be in the /c/Workspace/inav/build folder

Troubleshooting

*** multiple target patterns. Stop. | Error 2

Delete everything in the build directory that contains previous runs

You can either use file explorer and delete everything inside C:\Workspace\inav\build or run:

cd /c/Workspace/inav/build && rm -rf *

-- could not find arm-none-eabi-gcc

Redo export PATH, make sure xpack version number is correct:

export PATH=/c/Workspace/xpack/xpack-arm-none-eabi-gcc-10.2.1-1.1/bin:$PATH

make: the '-j' option requires a positive integer argument

You are using too new version of MSYS2, uninstall and reinstall version 20220603 or 20220503