Installing Theos on Windows via WSL

Theos is a powerful tool for developing tweaks and applications for iOS. In this article, we'll go over the steps to install Theos on Windows using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and the Ubuntu distribution.

1. Installing WSL and Ubuntu

To run Linux on Windows, we'll use WSL – Microsoft's official subsystem that allows you to install and run Linux distributions (like Ubuntu) directly on Windows without using virtual machines.

Enabling WSL

1. Open PowerShell as an Administrator. To do this, right-click on the Start menu and select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)."
2. Enter the command to install WSL and automatically download the latest version of Ubuntu: wsl --install

Once the installation is complete, restart your computer if prompted.

Setting Up Ubuntu

After restarting, find "Ubuntu" in your list of programs and launch it. On the first launch, Ubuntu will complete its setup and prompt you to create a new user and password.

Congratulations! You now have a full Linux environment on Windows.

2. Installing Theos on WSL (Ubuntu)

Now we can install and configure Theos for development.

Installing Required Dependencies

Open the Ubuntu terminal and execute the following command to install the necessary packages: apt install bash curl sudo

Installing Theos Using the Installer

Run the following command to install Theos:
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/theos/theos/master/bin/install-theos)"

This command will automatically download and install Theos on your system.

3. Verifying the Installation

To ensure that the installation was successful, open the Ubuntu terminal and run the following command: $THEOS/bin/nic.pl

This command launches the New Instance Creator (NIC), which allows you to create project templates for Theos. If the NIC menu appears, Theos has been installed correctly.