How To Compile the Mainline Linux Kernel v4.9 for TS-4900

embedded-linux-ts-board

Here’s a quick how-to guide straight from one of our engineers on how to compile the mainline Linux Kernel v4.9-rc1 and install it on the TS-4900. Support for the TS-4900 in the mainline kernel image (v4.9 and up) is a pretty big deal for us, and we’re excited about it. A big shout out to our friends at Savoir-faire Linux for their hard work in making this happen!

Step 1: Install the Toolchain

We need to install the toolchain from Ubuntu or Debian Jessie by running the following command:              Home

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf build-essential lzop u-boot-tools libncursesw5-dev -y

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How to Write an SD Card Image (Linux, Windows, Mac OSX)

sd-card

The question “How do I write a TS Image to an SD card under Linux / Mac OSX / Windows?” comes up quite a bit when dealing with embedded systems or any situation where you want to make an exact, bit-by-bit copy of a removable storage card or disk. While the following guide talks about our products, it can be applied generically. Read through it first to make sure you have a basic, core understanding of the instructions given, and then apply them to your situation. We’ll be looking at how to write to an entire disk and/or a specific partition on that disk using the dd command, a common utility found in most unix systems for low-level operations on hard disks. Jokingly, ‘dd’ stands for “disk destroyer” or “delete data”, so take care!      Home

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Develop a Simple Qt Quick Interface for HMI/SCADA Applications

Introduction

We’re graduating from our Getting Started with Qt Creator on the TS-TPC-8390-4900 guide, where we ran an example program which came preloaded with Qt Creator on our TS-TPC-8390-4900, and moving into a more real world situation. This guide builds upon the foundations that we set up in the getting started guide and will walk you through building a simple human machine interface (HMI) for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) applications. We’ll be controlling a register connected to a red LED as well as reading a temperature sensor connected to our CPU. This is about as basic as you can get to demonstrate both system control and data acquisition, and it’s not far from a basic real world use case. In the real world, you’d be toggling DIO or relays instead of toggling an LED. As an end user of the touch panel computer (TPC), you’d be transferring control signals or other data via RS-232 or Ethernet with the press of a button. Once you complete this tutorial it’s a small jump to toggle DIO and relays to control a remote system.

For this guide, a project file containing TS-TPC-8390-4900 specific code written in C++ called “HeatLaser” will be provided for you. It reads CPU temperature every second and toggles the red LED. You’ll simply download it and open the project within Qt Creator. By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to run and have a basic understanding of a Qt Quick Controls application. When you’re comfortable, you can make some edits to the project file to implement other similar tasks that may be more relevant to your needs.

[gfycat data_id="AridOrderlyGreatdane"]

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Getting Started with Qt Creator on the TS-TPC-8390-4900 or TS-TPC-7990

Introduction

In this getting started guide, we’re going to look at what it takes to get an example Qt Creator project running on the TS-TPC-8390-4900 or TS-TPC-7990. This will help pave the way for developing a human machine interface (HMI) for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA). We’ll start out by talking about the expected workflow and specific versions compatible with our chosen hardware, TS-TPC-8390-4900 or TS-TPC-7990. Next the TS-TPC-8390-4900 and Qt Creator will need to be prepared to work together. Finally, we’ll test our environment by running an example Qt Quick Controls Application. In a follow up guide, titled Develop a Simple Qt Quick Interface for HMI/SCADA Applications, we’ll look into what it takes to gather some system data and control DIO.        Home

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