How to ICON ($ICX) on a Windows PC

Users / developers may wish to utilise T-Bears on Windows for any number of reasons, however there is no direct support for this. In addition, some steps are missing in the current documentation on icondev.io. Here, we introduce a work-around solution.

Steps:

1. Install Windows Subsystem Linux 2 (WSL2) & Windows Terminal (optional)
2. Install Visual Studio (VS) Code
3. Get extensions in VS code (Remote — WSL)
4. Get python (v3.7 preferred)
5. Install dependencies (details below)
6. Create and activate virtual environment
7. Install rewardcalculator & golang
8. Install T-Bears

1. Install WSL2

A complete guide to installing WSL2 can be found here. GUI installation is optional.

• Open PowerShell as administrator
• Enable WSL

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

• Enable Virtual Machine Platform

Windows 10 (2004)

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

Windows 10 (1903, 1909)

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform -NoRestart

• Restart your PC (this will show that Windows is updating)
• Set WSL2 as default

wsl — set-default-version 2

• Troubleshoot if not working (refer to)

1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10
2. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/troubleshooting
3. Personal experience

• Install a Linux distro from the Microsoft Store

1. Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/ubuntu-2004-lts/9n6svws3rx71?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

2. Windows Terminal (optional)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/windows-terminal/9n0dx20hk701?activetab=pivot:overviewtab

2. Install Visual Studio (VS) Code

This is a straightforward step. Go to https://code.visualstudio.com/download and install.

3. Get extensions in VS code (Remote — WSL)

Run VS code, and it may pop-up installation suggestions for Remote — WSL. Otherwise, press ctrl + shift + x (extensions search), type in “Remote — WSL” and install. You can also click on the settings button to get access to extensions search.

Press F1 and type “Remote-WSL: New Window”.

A new VS code window will pop up, with bottom left showing “WSL: Ubuntu-20.04”

4. Get python (v3.7 preferred)

In your terminal, type:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.9/Python-3.7.9.tgz
tar xf Python-3.7.9.tgz

5. Install dependencies

We need some prerequisites. In your terminal, type:

sudo apt install build-essential zlib1g-dev \
libncurses5-dev libgdbm-dev libnss3-dev \
libssl-dev libreadline-dev libffi-dev curl

In the python directory, type:

./configure
sudo make install

Close and open your terminal again. In your terminal, type:

python3 — version

It should show something like this:

6. Create and activate virtual environment

In your home directory, create a directory — cd into it then type:

python3 -m venv .venv

Activate the venv by typing:

source .venv/bin/activate

7. Install rewardcalculator & golang

In your terminal, type:

git clone --depth 1 --branch 1.2.2 https://github.com/icon-project/rewardcalculator.git
sudo apt-get install golang

In the rewardcalculator folder, type “make”

Now to get the missing binaries, type:

sudo cp -R bin/icon_rc /usr/local/bin
sudo cp -R bin/rctool /usr/local/bin

8. Install levelDB, RabbitMQ and T-Bears

Install levelDB:

sudo apt-get install libleveldb-dev

Install libSecp256k:

sudo apt-get install libsecp256k1-dev

Install RabbitMQ and start service:

sudo apt-get install rabbitmq-server
sudo service rabbitmq-server start

Install tbears:

pip install tbears

Start tbears:

tbears genconf
tbears start

Try typing this to see if it works:

tbears balance hxe7af5fcfd8dfc67530a01a0e403882687528dfcb

It should show:

And that is all. You are a professional dev now! :)