The following has been written and tested for WSL2. There are minor changes with regards to Ubuntu, but what has been written here will likely work for any Debian based install. Installation of Phenix, WinCoot, and CCP4 is fairly routine with .exe installers, but users unfamiliar with the command line may struggle a bit with WSL2.

List of Software

  1. WSL2 and Dependencies
  2. Phenix
  3. CCP4
  4. Coot

Installation of WSL2 and Dependencies

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 allows you to operate in both a Windows and a Linux environment, dispensing the need for a virtual machine (i.e. Hyper-V). One can list and install Ubuntu distributions from PowerShell as an administrator:

C:\\Users\\name>wsl --list --online
The following is a list of valid distributions that can be installed.
Install using 'wsl.exe --install <Distro>'.

NAME                            FRIENDLY NAME
Ubuntu                          Ubuntu
Debian                          Debian GNU/Linux
kali-linux                      Kali Linux Rolling
Ubuntu-18.04                    Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
Ubuntu-20.04                    Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu-22.04                    Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
Ubuntu-24.04                    Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
OracleLinux_7_9                 Oracle Linux 7.9
OracleLinux_8_7                 Oracle Linux 8.7
OracleLinux_9_1                 Oracle Linux 9.1
openSUSE-Leap-15.6              openSUSE Leap 15.6
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP5    SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP5
SUSE-Linux-Enterprise-15-SP6    SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 SP6
openSUSE-Tumbleweed             openSUSE Tumbleweed

C:\\Users\\name>wsl --install -d Ubuntu-22.04

Or you can install directly from the Microsoft Store:

image.png

Once you have decided upon and downloaded a build, you will be prompted to set up a username and a password. I generally use something simple. Run updates.

sudo apt-get update

We need to download a few dependencies. This is pulled directly from the WSL2 Phenix instructions page.

sudo apt-get install \\
  build-essential \\
  freeglut3-dev \\
  libglu1-mesa-dev \\
  libgtk2.0-0 \\
  libxxf86vm1 \\
  mesa-common-dev \\
  mesa-utils \\
  openssl \\
  x11-apps

To get Coot to work we need a few things. Again this is pulled directly from Billy Poon’s instructions from the Phenix Github.

echo "deb <http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu> focal-security main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/focal-security.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libssl1.1

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/focal-security.list
sudo apt-get update