support Windows by Yuming-Lee24 · Pull Request #137 · learnsyslab/lsy_drone_racing

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-06T19:46:26Z

support native windows, including acados setup, verified on my win11 pc, I will verify again on my laptop. The simulation seems very smooth in the renderer.

A MinGW-w64 toolchain is introduced to compile acados and MPC solver DLLs.

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-06T19:56:33Z

_2026_09_06_20_54_56_782.mp4

ratheron · 2026-09-06T20:17:44Z

No more windows kids complaining. No one having to use docker

ratheron

Thanks for adding this. This will ease up the first week of the semester. @amacati do you agree that we should drop devcontainer support? Or just keep it in?

I've added some comments. Depending on Martin's answer, we should restructure the installation docs completely. Rest looks fine to me.

ratheron · 2026-09-06T20:26:20Z

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+@echo off
+rem Native Windows setup, called by Pixi through cmd.exe. No PowerShell required.


Called by pixi through cmd.exe?

hmm, at first I am about to use a .ps1 to setup acados, but the pixi executes activation scripts through cmd.exe by default, so a .ps1 file can not be runned. Well this comment should be deleted.

Removed unnecessary mention of PowerShell in comments.

Co-authored-by: Marcel Rath <75042654+ratheron@users.noreply.github.com>

amacati · 2026-09-07T10:11:29Z

Thanks for adding this. This will ease up the first week of the semester. @amacati do you agree that we should drop devcontainer support? Or just keep it in?

Hmm, I don't think anyone is using them, and pixi makes them redundant. We never had visualizations in the devcontainers either, right?

ratheron · 2026-09-07T11:26:03Z

Thanks for adding this. This will ease up the first week of the semester. @amacati do you agree that we should drop devcontainer support? Or just keep it in?

Hmm, I don't think anyone is using them, and pixi makes them redundant. We never had visualizations in the devcontainers either, right?

Afaik, the visualizations in the containers work, but is extremely slow.

ratheron · 2026-09-07T11:27:40Z

@Yuming-Lee24 Looks like my github messed up my suggestions. I removed multiples lines in each, i.e., the whole section. Please check where what lines the comment includes

amacati · 2026-09-07T12:18:29Z

Then I am fine with dropping the devcontainer support. Would be great if we could do this in a separate PR though to avoid too much churn.

ratheron · 2026-09-16T22:37:36Z

+    Download a **Win64/x86_64 GCC release ZIP (UCRT, POSIX)** from
+    [WinLibs](https://winlibs.com/#download-release). Extract `mingw64` to
+    `C:\tools\mingw64`, then add `C:\tools\mingw64\bin` to your user **Path** under


Do we need to install this manually? Why can't we have this in pixi?

ratheron · 2026-09-16T22:37:42Z

+    ```powershell
+    winget install --exact --id Git.Git
+    winget install --exact --id prefix-dev.pixi
+    winget install --exact --id Microsoft.VCRedist.2015+.x64


Do we need to install this manually? Why can't we have this in pixi?

ratheron · 2026-09-16T22:41:46Z

+    winget install --exact --id Git.Git
+    winget install --exact --id prefix-dev.pixi


We should just link to the official installation websites.

ratheron · 2026-09-16T22:42:29Z

-It is also possible to develop the project on Windows using WSL2. Clone this project into the WSL2 file system, and follow the same instructions as for Linux.
-
-However, rendering might not work out of the box. To enable software rendering, set the following environment variable in your WSL2 terminal:
+### Native Windows 10/11 (x86-64, not recommended)


This should be moved up after the Unix installation

ratheron

Nice that all dependencies are in pixi now. This makes it super easy to install. Thanks!

Since in this case the tutorial is basically identical for all platforms, we should only have one tutorial, which is just pointing out where differences lie (like file structure in windows etc)

ratheron · 2026-09-18T17:19:48Z

+    Pixi installs Python, CMake, MinGW-w64 GCC/G++, GNU Make, and the Visual C++ runtime
+    automatically into the project environment from the Windows dependencies in
+    `pyproject.toml`.


This is a Claude comment of what changed, but we dont need.

ratheron · 2026-09-18T17:21:37Z

 [tool.pixi.target.win-64.dependencies]
 cmake = "==3.26.0"
+vc14_runtime = "*"
+# MinGW-w64 toolchain for acados; exact package builds are pinned in pixi.lock.


Exact packages should not be pinned in the lock file. The lock file is only for reproducability. If we need exact packages, pin them here.

ratheron · 2026-09-18T17:26:29Z

 !!! note
    Be careful when flying the drone! Make sure to kill the process (**Ctrl+C**) immediately when your controller is unstable.

+### Native Windows 10/11 (x86-64, not recommended)


Since this is properly integrated now, this can be combined with the ubuntu install above. Like, git is already listed as a prerequisite and the clone and pixi steps are identical. We should just point out what doesnt work, like, does GPU work, does deployment work (most likely not) etc. In those cases, we can add something like I propose above

ratheron · 2026-09-18T17:27:21Z

Install deployment environment (deploy controller to real drones, Ubuntu only)

If this is the case.

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-19T13:20:09Z

-
-We also provide a dev container for the simulation environment. However, this is not recommended, since it's heavy and only supports software rendering at the moment. If you're using Windows, make sure to install [WSL](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install) and [Docker Desktop](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/windows/install/) with WSL integration. Refer to the `Using Docker` section below for more details.
-
 #### Simulation & Hardware on our Lab PC (If Necessary)


why this is If nessary? don't we prefer students to deploy on lab PCs? @ratheron

I agree, the (If Necessary) can be removed imo

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-19T13:33:15Z

these two lines, a robostack env is not something that student need to install before setting up the repo env, the robotstack is installed via pixi install -e deploy, I suggest to remove this line. And also the line for docker, since we don't support it anymore I guess? @ratheron

Docker, yes. Robostack, we should still hint what the env is

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-19T13:42:15Z

not a fan of putting these here, confusing: "should I execute these commands or not?", I would cover this in the simulation env setup below

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-19T13:56:15Z

we don't need -r now, rendering option is in the config file

Yuming-Lee24 · 2026-09-27T20:05:01Z

I reconstruct the whole setup.md and fix some lines in simulation.md and deployment.md, tell me what do you think this new version. I think it is clearer. @ratheron

ratheron

I like the overall structure of the new setup.md. Added some comments on the deployment.md

support Windows

f3a0d12

Yuming-Lee24 requested a review from ratheron September 6, 2026 19:46

ratheron requested changes Sep 6, 2026

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Yuming-Lee24 and others added 2 commits September 6, 2026 22:45

Simplify comment in setup_acados.bat

c9bd1b1

Removed unnecessary mention of PowerShell in comments.

Apply batched suggestions from code review

6c319b9

Co-authored-by: Marcel Rath <75042654+ratheron@users.noreply.github.com>

Simplify setup documentation

2b6d9d4

Yuming-Lee24 requested a review from ratheron September 7, 2026 15:44

ratheron requested changes Sep 16, 2026

View reviewed changes

make installation on windows automatical and refine the setup doc

aabfc30

ratheron requested changes Sep 18, 2026

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Yuming-Lee24 commented Sep 19, 2026

View reviewed changes

Yuming-Lee24 added 3 commits September 19, 2026 16:38

unified the setup guidance across 3 systems

572ed94

delete comment

00a4be2

refine docs

1ca25c5

ratheron requested changes Oct 5, 2026

View reviewed changes

apply suggested changes

8d9f629

		@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
		@echo off
		rem Native Windows setup, called by Pixi through cmd.exe. No PowerShell required.

		winget install --exact --id Git.Git
		winget install --exact --id prefix-dev.pixi


		We also provide a dev container for the simulation environment. However, this is not recommended, since it's heavy and only supports software rendering at the moment. If you're using Windows, make sure to install [WSL](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install) and [Docker Desktop](https://docs.docker.com/desktop/windows/install/) with WSL integration. Refer to the `Using Docker` section below for more details.

		#### Simulation & Hardware on our Lab PC (If Necessary)

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Yuming-Lee24 commented Sep 6, 2026

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amacati commented Sep 7, 2026

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Install deployment environment (deploy controller to real drones, Ubuntu only)

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Yuming-Lee24 commented Sep 27, 2026

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