Substrate on Windows

[Mischi]

Hi. In this issue, I wanna track the progress of all Windows related TODOs. Goal is to make Substrate as easy to develop as on MacOS / Linux 😄

TODOs:

• Update to rocksdb = 0.11.0 (it seems that there will be a release soon) to fix build issues on Windows (See also Linking on Windows failed with librocksdb-sys unresolved symbol #1299)
  • Update to rocksdb = 0.11.0 in https://github.com/paritytech/parity-common/tree/bkchr-shitty-memory-leak-detection?? (paritytech/parity-common@b0317f6)
  • Update parity-common in substrate accordingly. (abdf57f)
• Update to ring = 0.13.5 and to untrusted = 0.6.2 to fix build issues on Windows
  • First, update to latest libp2p in substrate as recommended in Update ring to 0.13 libp2p/rust-libp2p#674
  • Update ring = 0.13.5 and untrusted = 0.6.2 in libp2p (libp2p/rust-libp2p@f55a8bc)
  • Update libp2p in substrate again to get new ring and untrusted dependencies (8b0e5d7)
  • Update parity-crypto = 0.2, ring = 0.13.5 and untrusted = 0.6.2 in substrate (8b0e5d7)
• Add instructions on how to build substrate on Windows to the [README] (a66a044b24288a82e0cc5ebbb67ed7b4420f15ea)(https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/blob/master/README.adoc)
  • How to install llvm/clang
  • How to install openssl

I've created https://github.com/Mischi/substrate/tree/fix-windows which contains updates to parity-crypto, rocksdb, ring, and untrusted. The branch works now on three windows machines. (CC: @kenhuang)

Next I'll have a look on updating libp2p ....

[tomaka]

Next I'll have a look on updating libp2p ....

This is a non-trivial task, but we can easily crate a side-branch in libp2p with ring updated to 0.13 if that's the blocking point.

[Mischi]

@tomaka, Indeed. it is a non-trivial task for me atm. and it will take me some time to work through libp2p and how/what substrate uses of it.

Regarding a side-branch, this is what I did in Mischi/rust-libp2p@f78f6ec and Mischi@052710c and it is working for me and my coworkers.

If you're ok with using a side-branch for the moment than it would definitly make life easier for some Windows users for the time being 😃

@tomaka, do you wanna push the branch https://github.com/Mischi/rust-libp2p/tree/fix-windows to https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p? I could create a pull request then for substrate if needed.

Thanks!

[tomaka]

Indeed. it is a non-trivial task for me atm. and it will take me some time to work through libp2p and how/what substrate uses of it.

I'm already working on it.

[tomaka]

cc #1386

[Mischi]

Substrate is now working for us on Windows without any problems. Thanks everybody!