Installation Instructions

Workshop Materials

Clone and change into the workshop git repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/ferrous-systems/embedded-trainings-2020.git
$ cd embedded-trainings-2020

The workshop repository contains all workshop materials, i.e. code snippets, custom tools and the source for this handbook.

All programming will take place in its beginner/ and advanced/ subfolders.

VS Code

Windows: Go to https://code.visualstudio.com and run the installer.

Linux: Follow the instructions for your distribution on https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux.

macOS: Go to https://code.visualstudio.com and click on "Download for Mac"

OS specific dependencies

Linux only: USB

Some of our tools depend on pkg-config and libudev.pc. Ensure you have the proper packages installed; on Debian based distributions you can use:

$ sudo apt-get install libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev

To access the USB devices as a non-root user, follow these steps:

  1. (Optional) Connect the dongle and check its permissions with these commands:
$ lsusb -d 1915:521f
Bus 001 Device 016: ID 1915:521f Nordic Semiconductor ASA USB Billboard
$ #   ^         ^^

$ # take note of the bus and device numbers that appear for you when run the next command
$ ls -l /dev/bus/usb/001/016
crw-rw-r-- 1 root root 189, 15 May 20 12:00 /dev/bus/usb/001/016

The root root part in crw-rw-r-- 1 root root indicates the device can only be accessed by the root user.

  1. Create the following file with the displayed contents. You'll need root permissions to create the file.
$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/50-oxidize-global.rules
# udev rules to allow access to USB devices as a non-root user

# nRF52840 Dongle in bootloader mode
ATTRS{idVendor}=="1915", ATTRS{idProduct}=="521f", TAG+="uaccess"

# nRF52840 Dongle applications
ATTRS{idVendor}=="2020", TAG+="uaccess"

# nRF52840 Development Kit
ATTRS{idVendor}=="1366", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1", TAG+="uaccess"
  1. Run the following command to make the new udev rules effective
$ sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
  1. (Optional) Disconnect and reconnect the dongle. Then check its permissions again.
$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 017: ID 1915:521f Nordic Semiconductor ASA 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub

$ ls -l /dev/bus/usb/001/017
crw-rw-r--+ 1 root root 189, 16 May 20 12:11 /dev/bus/usb/001/017

The + part in crw-rw-r--+ indicates the device can be accessed without root permissions.

Windows only: Zadig JLink driver

On Windows you'll need to associate the nRF52840 Development Kit's USB device to the WinUSB driver.

To do that connect the nRF52840 DK to your PC using micro-USB port J2 (as done before) then download and run the Zadig tool.

In Zadig's graphical user interface,

  1. Select the 'List all devices' option from the Options menu at the top.

  2. From the device (top) drop down menu select "BULK interface (Interface 2)"

  3. Once that device is selected, 1366 1015 should be displayed in the USB ID field. That's the Vendor ID - Product ID pair.

  4. Select 'WinUSB' as the target driver (right side)

  5. Click "Install WinUSB driver". The process may take a few minutes to complete.

You do not need to do anything for the nRF52840 Dongle device.

Rust and tooling

Base Rust installation

Go to https://rustup.rs and follow the instructions.

Windows: Do install the optional components of the C++ build tools package. The installation size may take up to 2 GB of disk space.

Rust Analyzer

All: Open VS Code and look for Rust Analyzer in the marketplace (bottom icon in the left panel). Then install it.

Windows: It's OK to ignore the message about git not being installed, if you get one!

Better TOML

All: For better handling of Cargo.toml files, we recommend you install Better TOML if you're using VS Code.

Rust Cross compilation support

All: Run this command in a terminal:

$ rustup +stable target add thumbv7em-none-eabihf

ELF analysis tools

All: Run these commands in a terminal:

$ cargo install cargo-binutils

$ rustup +stable component add llvm-tools-preview

General purpose tools

Install the flip-link and probe-run tools using the following Cargo commands:


$ cargo install probe-run
(..)
Installed package `probe-run v0.3.5` (..)

$ cargo install flip-link
(..)
Installed package `flip-link v0.1.6` (..)

$ cargo install nrfdfu
(..)
Installed package `nrfdfu v0.1.3` (..)