FEniCS is a really nice tool for finite element modelling in python. It is difficult to install FEniCS on windows. The official instructions use a docker image. which I think is a bit heavy handed. I therefore installed it in a WSL-Ubuntu (Windows Subsystem for Linux). My experience with that has been friction free, so here are some very brief notes of what I did.

In windows

• Enable WSL2 and install a Ubuntu image. see here
• Install VS Code

In VS Code

• Install the “WSL remote” plug-in
• Install the “Python” plugin (the one from microsoft).

In your freshly installed ubuntu:

• Install mambaforge for Linux x86_64 (amd64)
• mamba install matplotlib numpy ipykernel fenics
• code my_test.ipynb (you might have to install/enable the VSCODe python plugin for WSL again.)

In new VS Code editor window

The final command should open up a new notebook file in a new VS code editor window. In this new VS Code window, test that you can import fenics.

• Add this line to the my_test.ipynb file from fenics import *

Success!