2025-04-07 (3 VO): Introduction#

Quiz#

Intro: Course Contents#

Live demo of what’s going to happen in the next two semsters …

  • Command line usage: basic commands, file types, special files

  • SSH usage: interactive login to my home Raspberry (more on SSH)

  • sysfs GPIO demo

    • See here for more about sysfs GPIO)

    • Make an LED (on GPIO 21 / 533) blink:

      $ v=0; while true; do sleep 0.5; v=$(($v+1)); v=$(($v%1)); echo $v > /sys/class/gpio/gpio533/value; done

    • See here how to transfer a live movie of a blinking LED from my home desk to the FH auditorium.

  • Outlook: systems programming. Rewrite the above shell snippet in C (here)

  • Talk about last year’s project: Crazy Car on Linux

Homework#

Install Linux#

We want to work on our own laptops, using Linux. Three options:

  • You have native Linux installed on the laptop. Nothing to do but install a number of packages. See below.

  • Use Teiniker’s VirtualBox Debian image. Should have everything installed that we need.

  • Install Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). This is more lightweight than a full VM; it installs Ubuntu Linux inside Windows, and sets up an easy integration path between the host and guest operating systems.

Install Programs#

Whichever Linux you use, please take care that the following programs are installed:

  • git

  • gcc and g++

  • cmake

  • make

  • Visual Studio Code

    • If you chose WSL, you install the Windows version of Code, on Windows

    • If you chose Teiniker’s VirtualBox/Debian, you install the Linux version of Code inside it

On Debian/Ubuntu, there exists the meta-package build-essential. Installing this single package pulls in all the required programs (except Code) and more.

On Debian/Ubuntu, you install git (for example) by saying

$ sudo apt install git