WComp on Raspberry Pi

As on Linux platform, WComp needs Mono to execute C# code. Current Raspberry Pi distribustion (Raspbian) are compiled for ARM with support for “hard float” which means that float computation are done directly by the processor and not by a soft evaluation.

Mono supports hard float since release 3.2.7. If with your distribution you can't get a release than is equal or newer than this release, you will have to do some jobs manually.

Current repositories have been updated and you can find a mono release with a correct version. So you only have to achieve the following classical installation process:

• Upgrade your system:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

• When logged in, install mono environment:

sudo apt-get install mono-complete

• Unzip SharpWCompContainer where you want, to be able to us it.

Mono has a known bug on "hard float" version. So we need to use a “soft float” distribution which is not available anymore on Raspberry Pi web site.

In order to use WComp on Raspberry Pi, you will have to do the following:

• Download the Debian "soft float" distribution
• If you are using a Raspberry Pi Rev B with 512MB, you should replace the files bootcode.bin and start.elf after writing the system on SD card in order to be able to boot you system.
• Then follow the installation process described at top of this page.

As the last step of the overall process, to install WComp, you juste have to unzip SharpWCompContainerMonoLinux.zip where you want, to be able to us it. To get WComp for Linux, you can contact us. We do not deliver Linux over the Web.

On Raspberry Pi, you can use different king of sensor libraries with WComp. You can use Goove, Phidgets, Electronic Brick. Moreover, we are currently working one a unified way to access to all these set of sensors and actuators for you to be able to create propotypes with differents sets.

To be able to use Groove sensors and actuators, you will have to install some extra software. You can read the following procedure to setup the software to use Groove Pi on Raspberry Pi.

• Setup software for Groove Pi
• Setup firmware for Groove Pi (only do that to upgrade the GroovePi firware to the last release)

When every software part is installed, you have to patch the wiringPi library in order to be able to use it with WComp. You just have to download the following zip file, extract it and and launch the installer to patch and install a patch wiringPi library on your Raspberry Pi.

* Download wiringpi_patch.zip

unzip wiringpi_patch.zip
cd WiringPi\ Patch
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh