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Tutorial: installation

From RFID Guardian

This describes the complete installation procedure, including how to obtain and/or build prerequisites for the Guardian Software.

Contents

[edit] Configurations

The RFID Guardian software distribution can build a number of different configurations:

  • programs to run on the embedded system; the obvious example is the Guardian Main program;
  • program on a PC that controls an RFID Reader; we include the software for the Philips Pegoda reader;
  • simulator, that uses sockets in stead of RFID communication; this allows to run a Guardian Main and a Reader (etc) and have them communicate in a very controlled setup;
  • Java program to interact with the Guardian over BlueTooth, to run on a cell phone.

[edit] Software requirements

These different configurations have different software requirements, see below for documentation of the various components:

  • for a Windows PC, CoLinux or the Linux emulator Cygwin is required;
  • for the embedded system, a checkout of the RTOS eCos is required, and a cross-compiler toolchain; we provide a port of eCos for our Guardian hardware;
  • for a commercial Reader connected to a PC, the DLLs and device drivers for this piece of hardware are necessary;
  • for the simulator, nothing special is required;
  • for the Java modules, Java J2ME and Ant are required.


The software consists of several components, some of them provided by us, some to be obtained over the internet.

[edit] Software Components

[edit] GNU make

The build tool used everywhere in our software.

[edit] Subversion

We use [Subversion] repositories for storing and distributing all software that is managed by the RFID Guardian team

[edit] Cygwin

preferred for native Windows systems that use the Pegoda Reader

MS Windows users may install [Cygwin], a Linux emulation layer. For building BlackFin software, Windows users are advised to use CoLinux.

[edit] Philips Pegoda Reader Software

The RFID Guardian software can interface with the Philips Pegoda Reader

[edit] CoLinux

preferred for Windows systems to do cross-compiler builds for the RFID Guardian device

An installation of Linux that lives side-by-side with MS Windows. This actually runs the Linux kernel and Linux software in parallel with MS Windows, without emulation (or rebooting).

[edit] Toolchain

A toolchain is required for building the software. For eCos and u-boot, a gcc cross-compiler is mandatory.

[edit] eCos

We have our own copy of the eCos repository tree, with added packages for BlackFin and RFID Guardian peripherals.

[edit] User interface in Java J2ME

A graphical user interface to control the RFID Guardian, either from a cell phone using a BlueTooth connection, or natively

[edit] MRG, the RFID Guardian Software

This repository contains the device drivers, library and high-level Guardian software.

[edit] u-boot

We mirror a version of u-boot used for the RFID Guardian. Modifying the bootloader is not for the faint of heart. Doing it wrong can render your RFID Guardian (temporarily) unusable.