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David Lechner edited this page Feb 8, 2014 · 27 revisions

Watch this space for more detailed instructions than those in the individual README.md files in the repository.

For the kernel hackers among you, please have a look at the ev3dev Kernel Hacker's Notebook that @dlech was good enough to merge into this repository. This kind of co-operation is what makes Open Source awesome!

Default root Password

Thanks to a couple of adventurous early adopters, it has been made clear that the default root password is a little hard to find, so I'm putting it up here in the wiki home page where it cannot be missed:

The default root password is r00tme - those are zeros, not "Ohs"

OK, let's really get started.

Getting Started

The easiest way to get started with ev3dev hacking is to use USB/Ethernet networking so that you can ssh directly to the brick without the need for a wifi conenction.

We're assuming that you've got:

  1. A microSD card with the ev3dev image loaded
  2. The USB cable that comes with the EV3
  3. A Linux/OSX/Windows host computer/tablet with a free host USB port
  4. The ev3dev.rc.local file on the FAT32 partition of the microSD card configured for your host machine.

Connect the USB-mini end of the cable to the EV3, and leave the host end disconnected from your computer for now. Then boot the EV3. When you see the ev3dev signon logo on the LCD, you know that the EV3 is ready to communicate with your host machine.

Once you have basic networking running between the EV3 running ev3dev and your host computer, then set up an NFS file share between them. This allows files on your host computer to be visible on the EV3. It makes updates, programming, debugging, etc a LOT easier becuase you don't have to shuffle the microSD card between the EV3 and your computer, and wait for the boot cycle to complete.

Just copy the files from your shared directory on the host to the EV3!

After completing these steps, you'll be ready to move on - here's what you've got working so far!

nfs_on_ev3dev

Next Steps

From this point forward, there are very few host-specific steps. The purpose of the Getting Started section is to have everyone get on the same page with USB/Ethernet, NFS file sharing, and logging in to their ev3dev enabled brick via ssh. It does not matter if you have a Linux host, a Windows machine, or a Mac - they are just a portal into the EV3.

Now we're going to do some other basic things, like updating the kernel, loading a new driver, and adding code to startup scripts.

Wherever possible, we'll provide links to other tutorials on the net for details. We simply don't have the time or resources to teach you how to run a text editor, or drive PuTTY on your Windows host. While Google is a fantastic resources, for programming questions, I find StackOverflow much better for answering many general Linux and networking issues. The DebianWiki, while not the prettiest website is full of good information too.

Below this point is still under development

Using the ev3dev Device Drivers

This is the documentation on using the drivers in the upcoming 00.02.00 release.

Documentation on Individual Loadable EV3 Drivers

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