Microcontroller Programming in WSL2

Introduction

Using WSL, Windows users can have access to all of the benefits, tools and features that come with a Linux development environment while having the experience integrate seamlessly with the Windows desktop. Combined with the Windows terminal and VSCode remote development, this experience is completely frictionless, and in my experience certainly much easier than using a virtual machine or dual-booting.

Some tasks however, such as connecting to USB devices and programming microcontrollers, can require a little more setup to get working when using WSL2. WSL2 includes a full Linux kernel that runs inside a managed virtual machine. Thus, to access any USB devices connected to the host machine an open source program called USBIPD is required. Luckily, this is fairly easy to setup.

Tutorial

First, verify you are running a WSL2 distro by running wsl -l -v inside Powershell or the command prompt. If you wish to upgrade from WSL1 to WSL2, you can do so with wsl --set-version <distro name> 2 inside Powershell/command prompt. Additionally, your kernel version inside WSL must be 5.10.60.1 or later, this can be verified by running uname -a inside WSL. These steps have been tested for Ubuntu 22.04.2, however for different distros the commands may be slightly different.

Now to install the software. Navigate to https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win/releases to download the latest .msi installer. Running this will setup the USPIPD service as well as the tools required to connect a usb device to WSL.

Next, if running Ubuntu, inside WSL run the following commands:

sudo apt install linux-tools-virtual hwdata
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/local/bin/usbip usbip `ls /usr/lib/linux-tools/*/usbip | tail -n1` 20

This will install the USP/IP linux tools as well as a database of USB hardware identifiers. If you are running a different distro, check the documentation at https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win/wiki/WSL-support to see if there are any instructions that apply to you.

Testing

Running lsusb inside the Ubuntu/WSL terminal will list all of the USB devices connected to WSL:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

If we navigate back to Windows and run usbipd wsl list, all of the USB devices connected to the Windows machine will be displayed, as well as their bus IDs and their connection status:

BUSID  VID:PID    DEVICE  STATE
2-1    1a86:7523  USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM11)  Not attached
2-5    27c6:639c  Goodix MOC Fingerprint  Not attached
2-6    0c45:6739  Integrated Webcam  Not attached
2-10   8087:0033  Intel(R) Wireless Bluetooth(R)  Not attached

The USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM11) is the Arduino Uno which I would like to program inside WSL. To attach it to the WSL instance, we need to run the following inside an Administrator Powershell / Command Prompt: usbipd wsl attach --busid 2-1. Likewise, it can be detached with usbipd wsl detach --busid 2-1.

In the WSL, running lsusb now yields:

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1a86:7523 QinHeng Electronics CH340 serial converter
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Showing we can now sucessfully access the USB device inside WSL. We are now ready to program the microcontroller, for example using the Arduino CLI or AVR Dude

Permissions with USB programmers

An issue I encountered when using a USBasp programmer inside WSL was:

avrdude: error: could not find USB device with vid=0x16c0 pid=0x5dc vendor='www.fischl.de' product='USBasp'

Linux users may have this issue, or a similar one, when attempting to use a USB programmer as generally normal users do not have the necessary permissions to access USB devices.

There are 2 potential fixes for this:

Run avrdude with sudo or as the root user with su.
Modify the udev rules so that all Linux users can access the device.

To add udev rule for USBasp:

Navigate to /etc/udev/rules.d
Create a new rule file: usbasp.rules
In the file, add a singular line: SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="16c0", ATTRS{idProduct}=="05dc", MODE=="0666"
Restart the udev service with: sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart

Useful Sites

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win/releases https://github.com/dorssel/usbipd-win/wiki/WSL-support#usbip-client-tools https://freetronics.com.au/pages/usbasp-icsp-programmer-quickstart-guide

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