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Ground Station Software - Install Guide

Ground Station Software - Install Guide

Owned by Will Merges (RIT Student)
Last updated: Jan 18, 2025 by Aaron Chan (RIT Student)Version comment
2 min read

System Constraints

The GSW system is designed be run on x86 architecture with a Linux based operating system, some applications may require additional graphical support like an X server to run.

The current operating systems tested to run GSW code are:

The system should also run on WSL2 for Windows users but will NOT run on WSL1 without further system call implementation from Microsoft.

ARM based Linux probably works but has not been tested.

 

Getting the Code

The source code is hosted here.

It is recommended to use git to download the source. Git should be installed with most Linux distributions (Ubuntu included), but if git is not installed run the following command:

sudo apt install git

 

Navigate to the directory you would like to install the source code too, in this example we will install to the user's home directory.

Then download the source code to that directory.

cd ~ git clone https://github.com/WillMerges/GSW-2021

 

Building/Installing the System

Building the code requires the following dependencies:

  • make

  • g++

To install these dependencies, run the following command:

sudo apt install make && sudo apt install g++

 

Navigate to where you downloaded the GSW-2021 directory (in this example, the home directory) and run the following commands:

chmod +x install ./install

This will automatically install mandatory tools, create new directories, and build the source code.

 

Next time you wish to navigate to the GSW-2021 directory, simply type the following alias:

gsw

*NOTE: this command also sets your environment for you.

 

You must set the environment every time you wish to startup the system or run any new applications, e.g. you must either use the gsw alias or manually set the environment in every terminal window you use.

To manually set your environment (rather than using the gsw alias), execute the following command from the GSW-2021 directory:

. setenv

 

Additional Tools (Optional)

For using some UI applications (Grafana & InfluxDB), it is required that mDNS is supported. The current system uses the following programs, which are installed by default in Ubuntu 18.x.x:

  • avahi-daemon (expected to started as a service at boot)

  • avahi-publish (used by applications to advertise their address as a certain name, e.g. grafana.local)

If these tools are not installed, install them with the following:

sudo apt install avahi-daemon && sudo apt install avahi-utils

 

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