picolynx 0.1.dev30

Auto-attach microcontrollers to WSL.

PicoLynx - Attach Microcontrollers to WSL

PicoLynx is a Windows-only TUI (Text-based User Interface) application for attaching and detaching microcontroller devices to WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) distributions. It monitors Windows WM_DEVICECHANGE messages with pywin32 and leverages usbipd-win to manage device connections.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d5382270-cae8-4eb4-90a6-28ccb96e5250

Features

• Manual control: Easily attach, bind, detach, or unbind devices using keyboard shortcuts.
• Live device table: View connected and persisted devices in real time.
• Windows message monitoring: Reacts instantly to hardware changes.
• Thread-safe: Ensures safe device operations even with concurrent events.
• Beautiful TUI: Built with Textual for a modern terminal experience & many theme options.
• Auto-attachment (TODO): Detects devices as they are connected & automatically attaches to WSL.

Requirements

• Windows 10/11 (Windows-only)
• usbipd-win (must be installed & available in your PATH)
• WSL with at least one running distribution (for attachment)
• Python 3.11+ (recommended via Astral's uv package manager)

PicoLynx requires administrator privileges to interact with USB devices. If not run as administrator, it will prompt for elevation.

Installation

To install Astral uv, use the following command:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

Astral uv package manager is recommended for a fast, isolated, and reliable install. You can install PicoLynx globally with the following uv command:

uv tool install picolynx

Or:

uv tool install "git+https://github.com/andyrids/picolynx.git"

You can run PicoLynx without installing, by running the following command:

uvx picolynx

Or:

uvx "git+https://github.com/andyrids/picolynx.git"

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
a	Attach
b	Bind
d	Detach
u	Unbind

Select a device in the table and press the corresponding key to perform the action.

Development

The just command runner (GitHub page) is a handy way to save and run project-specific commands, which are written in a file called justfile.

If you use just, you can add use the commands below to run PicoLynx in development mode, with the textual console integration:

This command uses uv to sync the package dependencies and create a .venv:

just sync

Alias for:

uv sync

Running the command below in one terminal, will activate the textual console:

just console

Alias for:

uv run textual console -x EVENT -x SYSTEM

Running this command will run PicoLynx in development mode.

just dev

Alias for:

uv run textual run --dev src/picolynx/__main__.py

Acknowledgements

• usbipd-win
• textual
• textual-cookbook
• transcendent-textual
• Astral uv
• just