Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Discussion forum for the Picoscope 6 Linux software
mario_
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Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by mario_ »

Dear Linux community,

We have just finished round of testing and are able to release drivers for PicoScope to be used on ARM powered platforms. We have decided to focus on 2 groups: specialized armhf build for RaspberryPi under control of Raspbian and more general amrhf build to be used with BeagleBoneBlack (cortex-A8 based devices) under control of Debian.

There are few remarks with this release as well with general notes to be taken into account before using those drivers on embedded devices.
  • It is recommended to use powered USB hub while connecting the devices. Some of the devices have increased power requirements and connecting them to the embedded system may cause a power surge, which subsequently may cause voltage drop effecting in OS/CPU hang or in extreme cases blowing a fuse or damaging the port.
  • Most of the embedded systems will be running below recommended system requirements for the drivers. This means that on some occasions while system is busy, the driver will not have enough resources to process the data, resulting in internal watchdog kicking in and dropping of the device / hanging the application.
  • Designing application you should have in mind memory requirements and adjust the sampling rate/amount accordingly to the device it is run under.
  • Although the use case in this topic shows PicoScope6 running on BeagleBoneBlack, there are no current plans on releasing it for mentioned platforms. Mainly due to system resource demands. We did optimize the application to the point of operation, but the real world usability is minimal.
  • The drivers may work on other platforms - but those cases we are not able to test or provide fixes for. Also they are delivered as Debian packages and extracting binaries for use with another system may cause the faulty behavior.
  • This release is treated as *BETA* release. We took care to make all drivers features to be available, but they may not work in all cases. At this stage it is mainly targeted for experienced software/system developers willing to explore possibility of running our devices on mentioned platforms. For any queries and bug reports please contact support@picotech.com
The packages have been provided on our Debian/Raspbian(new) repositories. To get drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and likes, the entry in /etc/apt/sources.list should be:

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deb http://labs.picotech.com/debian/ picoscope main
For Raspbian use the following:

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deb http://labs.picotech.com/raspbian/ picoscope main
Every package is signed with or key, so in order to verify them the public part has to imported:

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wget -O - http://labs.picotech.com/debian/dists/picoscope/Release.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
To pull/update repositories cache run

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sudo apt-get update
And to install package for required device use

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sudo apt-get install package_name
Following packages are available: libpl1000, libps2000, libps2000a, libps3000, libps3000a, libps4000, libps4000a, libps5000, libps5000a, libps6000, libusbdrdaq, libusbtc08

Every driver package comes with C console example - /opt/picoscope/share/doc/libdriver. Those require autotools to configure. To install all dependencies use:

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sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf automake make libtool
To compile the example, in the console/terminal navigate to the required folder.

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cd /opt/picoscope/share/doc/libdriver
To prepare build files run (and wait...):

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./autogen.sh
Then compile the code:

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make
And finally run the application (adjust model to the specific example):

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./psMODELcon
The examples were taken straight from any other Linux releases. They may have values/configurations not suitable for every particular device so please be aware.

Best Regards,
Mario

pablorivera
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by pablorivera »

I have a question:
Which version of Debian ?
Debian 7 or Debian 8 ( Jessie ) ?
I remember that you suggested Debian jessie for run the Picoscope 6
but Jessie is still a unstable version
I need to develop some applications using this drivers

thank you
I really appreciate the effort !

Pablo Rivera

Martyn
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by Martyn »

Debian 8 would be required for PicoScope, due to missing packages in 7, but 7 will be fine for your own application using the drivers.
Martyn
Technical Support Manager

pablorivera
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by pablorivera »

config.log.txt
is the output of configure
(38.15 KiB) Downloaded 1417 times
Hi
Hi
I followed all the instructions in my BBB with Debian 8 Jessie and ran #./autogen.sh
I got the following error message: configure: error: libps5000a missing!
and after that, I couldn't continue.
I kindly appreciate your help as soon as possible !
Find attached the config.log
Find attached the o-outgent.txt
regards
Pablo Rivera
o-autogen.txt
the screen output during autogen
(4.97 KiB) Downloaded 1383 times
I ran #sudo usermod -G pico root
I ran #newgrp
all as root

mario_
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by mario_ »

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/usr/bin/ld: warning: libopencv_core.so.2.3, needed by //opt/picoscope/lib/libpicoipp.so.1, not found (try using -rpath or -rpath-link)
/usr/bin/ld: warning: libopencv_imgproc.so.2.3, needed by //opt/picoscope/lib/libpicoipp.so.1, not found (try using -rpath or -rpath-link)
This is due to Jessie having upgraded opencv to 2.4.
You need to install older versions...

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wget http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/opencv/libopencv-imgproc2.3_2.3.1-11_armhf.deb
wget http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/o/opencv/libopencv-core2.3_2.3.1-11_armhf.deb
ar p libopencv-core2.3_2.3.1-11_armhf.deb data.tar.gz | tar -C / -xzf - 
ar p libopencv-imgproc2.3_2.3.1-11_armhf.deb data.tar.gz | tar -C / -xzf - 
ldconfig
Hope this helps.

Mario

pablorivera
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by pablorivera »

Great !
the application runs fine !
thank you
Pablo Rivera

MeasurementBlues
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by MeasurementBlues »

How might some of you use a Pico Scope with open-source hardware? I'd like to chat offline for a possible article on EDN or EE Times.

Thanks,

Martin Rowe
Sr. Technical Editor, Test & Measurement
+1-212-600-3403
martin.rowe@ubm.com

jhonatan_camacho
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by jhonatan_camacho »

Hi Mario,

Is it possible to use the PicoScope 2208 series inthe Odroid-U3 plattform ?(http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products ... &tab_idx=2).

Details about architecture are following:

Linux odroid 3.8.13.28 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Oct 10 08:19:34 UTC 2014 armv7l armv7l armv7l GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

I appreciate so much your recommendation.

Best Regards

mario_
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by mario_ »

Hi Jonathan,

libps2000a *should work* on Ubuntu14 on any ARM based board as long as the OS support it. However we haven't tested this particular version of OS on the hardware in subject.

The problem you will definitely encounter is OpenCV version. Ubuntu14 supplies libopencv-core2.4 while libpicoipp, requirement for libps2000a, needs libopencv-core2.3. It can be attempted to solve in the same way as in previous posts for Pablo.


Nario

jhonatan_camacho
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Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by jhonatan_camacho »

Hi Mario,
Thanks for your quick answer.
Effectivelly, when I try to install the libps2000a it occurs same problem as is described for pablo: the library is missing.

I would try the same procedure.

Best regards

jhonatan_camacho
Newbie
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2015 2:45 pm

Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by jhonatan_camacho »

Hi mario,

I had success with the instalation for PicoScope Library under Odroid System,
However, I would like to know if it is possible to use a graphical interface as is shown in the forum (http://www.picotech.com/support/post42037.html#p42037).

I would appreciate so much your recomendations.

Best Regards

design360
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Joined: Wed Oct 01, 2014 12:30 pm

Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by design360 »

Is there any support for the TC-08 Datalogger on a Raspberry Pi? I would be interested to know this as it could potentially be useful.

Ian.

Martyn
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Location: St. Neots

Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by Martyn »

There are armhf drivers in the repository (libusbtc08_1.8.10-1r07_armhf.deb), follow the instructions in the first post to access these.
Martyn
Technical Support Manager

mkoennecke
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Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 9:28 am

Problems on newest rasbian

Post by mkoennecke »

Hi,

I try to run the ps2000a driver on raspberry pi on the newest rasbian based on debian wheezy.
I have a little program which controls the signal generator. This runs nicely on a i386 system.
I can build it on the raspberry but it does not run for a variety of reasons:

* The first problem I had was the opencv version problem. I installed the 2.3 version as
described but this crashed with an invalid instruction error in libopencv-core
* I then reinstalled opencv 2.4 and created links to make the driver think it has 2.3. This sometimes
works but not in this case. I was rewarded with a memory problem in the usb library.

Quite obviously the issue is a library version mismatch issue. I now only see these ways forward:

* Either the library gets recompiled from source for the recent version of rasbian
* You hand out the source code such that I can compile myself.....
* You tell me with which version of rasbian this works and where I get the required old version from

Or shall I rather invest into a i386 based little computer to run the thing? We use only the signal
generator to drive a neutron spin flipper.

Best Regards,

Mark Koennecke

Hitesh

Re: Drivers for BeagleBoneBlack and Raspberry Pi

Post by Hitesh »

Hi Mark,

Apologies for the delay in a response back to you.

My understanding is that there has been a fix made to the drivers and a request has been made in order for these to be made available.

We will post back here once the repository has been updated.

Update: A new release of the drivers is now available resolving the opencv dependency problems.

Regards,
Last edited by Hitesh on Thu Jul 02, 2015 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Updated to inform of new driver release

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