16. Starling on Windows¶

Running Starling on Windows needs a few things to be installed:

16.1 Installing Docker¶

Starling relies on a technology called Docker. This has a Windows installer on the docker site: docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install/

Download and run the installer, to install Docker on Windows. Note that if you have Windows 10 Home (rather than Pro), the instructions differ slightly. They can be found here: docs.docker.com/docker-for-windows/install-windows-home/.

16.2 Installing Git¶

If you don't already have Git installed, it is highly recommended. Git manages source code versioning and is used for distributing the core Starling files. It can be downloaded from here: git-scm.com/download/win. You could also install GitHub Desktop (other vendors are available).

16.3 Installing WSL¶

Windows Subsystem for Linux allows a windows machine to run a linux environment without needing a Virtual Machine or having to restart the computer. While it is not strictly necessary (most things can be run with Powershell), it is hightly recommended as it reduces most issues caused by windows itself. To install, you should follow the instructions from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install.

16.4 Getting Starling¶

For simple usage of the system, clone the Mumuration repo to a working folder on your computer. If you are doing slightly more complex work, clone the ProjectStarling repo to a working folder on your computer. You probably want to avoid any cloud-backed folders as these tend to interfere with Git.

With Git installed as above, you can open PowerShell, navigate to the folder where you want to clone the project (using cd) and run:

# Mumurations
git clone https://github.com/StarlingUAS/Mumuration
# ProjectStarling
git clone --recurse-subdmoules https://github.com/StarlingUAS/ProjectStarling

16.5 Running¶

Using the Starling CLI should reduce many of the problems.

With Docker installed and the repo downloaded, navigate into the project folder in a terminal. Once there you should see a file called docker-compose.tcp.yml. This contains instructions for a tool called Docker Compose to setup a set of containers for you. Note that this version has been modified slightly to use TCP ports which makes things easier on Windows/WSL.

To launch the containers, open PowerShell, make sure you're in the root of the Mumuration repo (if using ProjectStarling it will be 'ProjectStarling/Mumuration') and run the windows version of any launch:

docker-compose -f docker-compose/px4/docker-compose.simple-offboard.windows.yml up

You should see the tool begin to "pull" (download) the files needed to run the project. These have been built from files in the Starling repo and uploaded to DockerHub to save you time. Some of these files are quite big, so be prepared to wait a while for downloading to finish. After the first run, the system will use the already-downloaded files which will speed up the process.

One the downloading process is complete, the tool will begin to setup the containers. At this point, Windows may prompt you to allow "Docker Container Backend" to connect to networks

With everything running, and docker allowed to access the network, open a web browser and go to localhost:8080 where you should see the web-based Gazebo interface.

You can also launch Mission Planner (other GCS software is available) and connect to TCP port 5760. Using the IP address of 127.0.0.1 should work as docker will ensure that the connection gets routed to the right place.

16.6 Things to be aware of¶

Docker works slightly differently in Windows compared to Linux which can cause problems, especially with regards to networking. If you're webpages for gazebo or others are not connecting on local ports, it may be because you have run the linux docker-compose file by accident!