Windows 10+

  • Minimum Requirements

    • Windows 10 version 2004 (Build 19041 and higher)

    • Quad-core CPU running at 2.0 GHz+

    • 8 GiB of RAM

  • Recommended

    • Windows 11

    • 6th Gen Intel® Core CPU or later OR AMD Ryzen™️ 1000-series or later

    • 16 GiB of RAM

The following is the recommended installation method under Windows. Other virtualization-based methods, such as VMWare, are not supported, and some such as VirtualBox are known to impair the operation of OpenLane.

Setting up WSL

  1. Follow official Microsoft documentation for WSL located here to install the WSL 2. Make sure your OS version supports WSL 2.

  2. Follow official steps to Install Docker Desktop on Windows located here.

    • Make sure to tick Use WSL 2 instead of Hyper-V (recommended) during installation.

    A screenshot of the Docker Desktop installer. A checkbox labelled "Use WSL 2 instead of Hyper-V (recommended)" is ticked.

    • If you’ve previously installed Docker Desktop for Windows, ensure

  3. Make sure that option Start Docker Desktop when you log in is enabled in Docker Desktop -> Settings and WSL 2 Docker engine is enabled and Settings -> Resource -> WSL Integration is enabled.

    A Screenshot of the Docker Settings. Two options, "Start Docker Desktop when you log in" and "Use the WSL 2 based engine" are both circled.

  4. Click the Windows icon, type in “Windows PowerShell” and open it.

    The Windows 11 Start Menu with "powershell" typed into the search box, showing "Windows PowerShell" as the first match

  5. Install Ubuntu using the following command: wsl --install -d Ubuntu

  6. Check the version of WSL using following command: wsl --list --verbose

    It should produce the following output:

    PS C:\Users\user> wsl --list --verbose
    NAME                   STATE           VERSION
    * Ubuntu                 Running         2
    docker-desktop         Running         2
    docker-desktop-data    Running         2
    

    If you get following output, then you need to launch Docker Desktop on Windows from the start menu.

    PS C:\Users\user> wsl --list --verbose
    NAME                   STATE           VERSION
    * Ubuntu                 Running         2
    docker-desktop         Stopped         2
    docker-desktop-data    Stopped         2
    

    Same goes for if you get an output that looks like this

    PS C:\Users\user> docker run hello-world
    
    The command 'docker' could not be found in this WSL 2 distro.
    We recommend to activate the WSL integration in Docker Desktop settings.
    
    For details about using Docker Desktop with WSL 2, visit:
    
    https://docs.docker.com/go/wsl2/
    
  7. Launch “Ubuntu” from your Start Menu.

    The Windows 11 Start Menu showing a search for the "Ubuntu" app, next to which is a window of the Windows Terminal which opens after clicking it

  8. Follow the steps shown below.

Installation of required packages

Update the package database and upgrade the packages to avoid version mismatches then install required packages as follows:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt install -y build-essential python3 python3-venv python3-pip python3-tk curl make git

Checking the Docker Installation

After that, you can run Docker Hello World without root. To test it use the following command:

# After reboot
docker run hello-world

You will get a little happy message of Hello world, once again, but this time without root.

Hello from Docker!
This message shows that your installation appears to be working correctly.

To generate this message, Docker took the following steps:
1. The Docker client contacted the Docker daemon.
2. The Docker daemon pulled the "hello-world" image from the Docker Hub.
   (amd64)
3. The Docker daemon created a new container from that image which runs the
   executable that produces the output you are currently reading.
4. The Docker daemon streamed that output to the Docker client, which sent it
   to your terminal.

To try something more ambitious, you can run an Ubuntu container with:
$ docker run -it ubuntu bash

Share images, automate workflows, and more with a free Docker ID:
https://hub.docker.com/

For more examples and ideas, visit:
https://docs.docker.com/get-started/

Troubleshooting Docker permission issues (Linux only)

If you get Docker permission error when running any Docker images, then likely, you forgot to follow the steps to make Docker available without root or you need to restart your Operating System.

OpenLane> docker run hello-world
docker: Got permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock: Post "http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/containers/create": dial unix /var/run/docker.sock: connect: permission denied.
See 'docker run --help'.
OpenLane>

Checking Installation Requirements

In order to check the installation, you can use the following commands:

docker --version
python3 --version
python3 -m pip --version

Successful outputs will look like this:

$ docker --version
Docker version 20.10.16, build aa7e414fdc
$ python3 --version
Python 3.10.5
$ python3 -m pip --version
pip 21.0 from /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip (python 3.10)
...
Once an environment has been created, you may wish to activate it, e.g. by
sourcing an activate script in its bin directory.

Download and Install OpenLane

  • Download OpenLane using PIP:

python3 -m pip install openlane
  • Run a smoke test for OpenLane:

python3 -m openlane --dockerized --smoke-test

If the smoke test finishes successfully, congratulations. You’re ready to use OpenLane.

Note

You can run simply invoke python3 -m openlane --dockerized without any arguments to drop into an interactive shell inside the Docker environment, with your home directory and your PDK root directory mounted.