Error Building Slicer on Windows Subsystem for Linux

Development
1

Hi all,

I am trying to build Slicer via the Windows Subsystem for Linux with Anaconda instead of default Python. Following the steps of the Slicer Wiki, I am able to get past the Cmake step. However, I run into an error during make, and I believe it is due do the following:

/mnt/g/SlicerCustom/Slicer/Slicer-Superbuild/PCRE-prefix/src/PCRE/missing: line 81: aclocal-1.15: command not found
WARNING: ‘aclocal-1.15’ is missing on your system.
You should only need it if you modified ‘acinclude.m4’ or
’configure.ac’ or m4 files included by ‘configure.ac’.
The ‘aclocal’ program is part of the GNU Automake package:
http://www.gnu.org/software/automake
It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf
http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/
http://www.perl.org/
– Looking for mknod
make[3]: *** [/mnt/g/SlicerCustom/Slicer/Slicer-Superbuild/PCRE-prefix/src/PCRE/aclocal.m4] Error 127
make[2]: *** [PCRE-prefix/src/PCRE-stamp/PCRE-build] Error 2
make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/PCRE.dir/all] Error 2

Any thoughts on solving this issue?
Thanks,
Edward

2

It is an interesting experiment to see if WSL is complete enough so that you can build a complex project like Slicer, but as far as I know, applications with graphical user interface are not officially supported by WSL.

On Windows, it makes the most sense to build using native tools. VS2013 Community Edition is free.

If you prefer working in a Linux environment on Windows then you can use Docker or a virtual machine (VirtualBox, Hyper-V).

3

It may also be worth exploring building using the dockcross-windows-x64 docker image bundling MXE/MinGW-w64 toolchain.

See https://github.com/dockcross/dockcross