Re: Arduino libraries for Userspace Linux

[Jason Kridner]

On Monday, April 29, 2013 2:12:35 PM UTC-4, Parav wrote:

Hi

I previously wanted to port the Arduino libraries to Starterware...But after a talk with Dave Anders, I'm convinced that the Arduino libraries would be much more useful in a linux environment. 

I am trying to finalize a few things for my proposal....The sysfs (gpio, spi-dev, i2c-dev etc.) entries should be able to take care of most of the core peripherals. Is there any scope for going into mem map? http://www.alexanderhiam.com/tutorials/beaglebone-io-using-python-mmap/ That would provide a very low level access of the hardware but will not be consistent with other userspace applications, which use the standard interfaces.

I am also looking for mentors interested in this stuff. I am going to start working out of Dave Anders' original Energia branch https://github.com/prpplague/Energia/tree/userspace. The initial couple of weeks will probably spent in making the basic functions (digitalWrite, digitalRead etc.) and integrating the the gcc-arm-linux compiler into the Energia IDE. However, I'm still not sure what approach to follow for programming into the Beaglebone. I'm looking into tftp as of now... And then there's the option of building the Wiring IDE for the Beaglebone. Will that be too much for the GSoC timeframe?

100% of the functions could easily be too much.  Please break down implementation into phases.

 

Of course, once the libraries have been made, further improvements can always be made.

Regards

Parav 

irc: hatguy_

[David Anders]

Parav,

> On May 2, 2013 at 6:34 PM Jason Kridner <jkri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Monday, April 29, 2013 2:12:35 PM UTC-4, Parav wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I previously wanted to port the Arduino libraries to Starterware...But
> > after a talk with Dave Anders, I'm convinced that the Arduino libraries
> > would be much more useful in a linux environment.
> >
> > I am trying to finalize a few things for my proposal....The sysfs (gpio,
> > spi-dev, i2c-dev etc.) entries should be able to take care of most of the
> > core peripherals. Is there any scope for going into mem map?
> > http://www.alexanderhiam.com/tutorials/beaglebone-io-using-python-mmap/ That
> > would provide a very low level access of the hardware but will not be
> > consistent with other userspace applications, which use the standard
> > interfaces.
> >

use of mem map is highly discouraged as part of the linux community, except for
specific use cases

> > I am also looking for mentors interested in this stuff. I am going to
> > start working out of Dave Anders' original Energia branch
> > https://github.com/prpplague/Energia/tree/userspace. The initial couple
> > of weeks will probably spent in making the basic functions (digitalWrite,
> > digitalRead etc.) and integrating the the gcc-arm-linux compiler into the
> > Energia IDE. However, I'm still not sure what approach to follow for
> > programming into the Beaglebone. I'm looking into tftp as of now... And
> > then there's the option of building the Wiring IDE for the Beaglebone. Will
> > that be too much for the GSoC timeframe?
> >
>
> 100% of the functions could easily be too much. Please break down
> implementation into phases.
>
>

core items that need to be addressed are GPIO, ADC, I2C and SPI. those are the
items that need to be address before anything else, with GPIO being the first.

> > Of course, once the libraries have been made, further improvements can
> > always be made.
> >
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Parav
> > irc: hatguy_
> >

Dave

[Matt Porter]

On Monday, April 29, 2013 2:12:35 PM UTC-4, Parav wrote:

Hi

I previously wanted to port the Arduino libraries to Starterware...But after a talk with Dave Anders, I'm convinced that the Arduino libraries would be much more useful in a linux environment. 

I am trying to finalize a few things for my proposal....The sysfs (gpio, spi-dev, i2c-dev etc.) entries should be able to take care of most of the core peripherals. Is there any scope for going into mem map? http://www.alexanderhiam.com/tutorials/beaglebone-io-using-python-mmap/ That would provide a very low level access of the hardware but will not be consistent with other userspace applications, which use the standard interfaces.

I am also looking for mentors interested in this stuff. I am going to start working out of Dave Anders' original Energia branch https://github.com/prpplague/Energia/tree/userspace. The initial couple of weeks will probably spent in making the basic functions (digitalWrite, digitalRead etc.) and integrating the the gcc-arm-linux compiler into the Energia IDE. However, I'm still not sure what approach to follow for programming into the Beaglebone. I'm looking into tftp as of now... And then there's the option of building the Wiring IDE for the Beaglebone. Will that be too much for the GSoC timeframe? Of course, once the libraries have been made, further improvements can always be made.

Following up on my comments on IRC. To summarize, I believe you should

1) Focus on the core APIs Dave suggested

2) Given #1, be able to demonstrate the implementation by running the examples from http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage with minimal modifications (for the hardware/pin differences). With that said, everything in 1. Basics should be a target and likely a few from the 2. Digital and 3. Analog section. This is really the gold standard for saying the project is "done" IMHO.

3) To achieve this #2, focus on one standard pin map and DT devices to instantiate. KISS.

4) Documentation should include a simple "porting guide" for these interfaces to translate what a user commonly sees written for a Arduino example (integer pin number for a "digital pin") and what each of those corresponds to on this BeagleBone energia port with the standard pin map you define.

-Matt