The missing link to use rust from WSL (Linux Susbsystem for Windows) from IntelliJ (and potentially also other IDEs) to achieve a cross compiling environment on Windows without the hassle of setting up an actual cross compiler (because the latter is depending on C cross toolchains which are currently all outdated for Windows->Linux and generally not recommended for real usage).

Caution: this is a hack really and is in desperate need of a more proper solution. But as long as it works.. why does it matter :)

Installation

git clone [email protected]:philippkeller/rustup-toolchain-proxy.git
cd rustup-toolchain-proxy
./install.ps1

This

• installs the stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu toolchain (or updates if it is already installed)
• installs cargo.exe, rustc.exe and rustup.exe into $HOME\.rustup\toolchains\stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu\bin\

Usage

Set your project as linux-gnu, pointing to the

cd my_rust_project
rustup rustup override set stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Currently the following works in IntelliJ (tested on my laptop only, please file PRs/bug requests):

• first time loading a project in IntelliJ discovers the correct toolchain
• refresh Cargo makes IntelliJ understand the code structure and e.g. displays play icons next to main() or test functions
• the line numbers in compiler errors are clickable

What does not work yet:

• colors (probably needs some "tty" support or whatever windows calls this)
• environment variables which IntelliJ sets, e.g. RUST_BACKTRACE are not set within bash

How it works

This takes into account the proxy characteristics of rustup itself. Basically that's the chain of commands:

• IntelliJ runs cargo.exe (or rustc.exe)
• rustup (which is a proxy really) checks active toolchain (rustup show) and runs cargo.exe lying in $HOME\.rustup\toolchains\stable-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu\bin\
• the cargo.exe in this toolchain is again a proxy which executes bash.exe -c "cargo ..." and outputs stdout/stderr, plus does translate the linux paths from e.g. "/home/linux_user/..." to: "C:\Users\windows_user\AppData\Local\lxss\home\linux_user.."