Automatic installation for ubuntu using the tinyprod repository

With Ubuntu you have the possibility for a relative hassle-free installation by using the repository from the tinyprod project. In particular, it provides the toolchain, while the TinyOS code can be obtained from somewhere else.

You can also use this guide to install TinyOS on VM of your choice, as long as the installed system is Ubuntu.

Installation

1) First follow the guide by Eric Decker to install the toolchain. You will need to have gpg installed (which is quite likely already included in your distribution).

2) Get the code from the official svn (subversion is required):

 svn co http://tinyos-main.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ <local-tinyos-path>

<local-tinyos-path> is the folder that will contain all the TinyOS code.

3) You will need to add some enviroment variables to your shell. The following file includes the necessary ones. Of course the placeholder <local-tinyos-path> has to be replaced by the actual path where you chose to place the code in the last section.

# Here we setup the environment
# variables needed by the tinyos 
# make system

export TOSROOT="<local-tinyos-path>"
export TOSDIR="$TOSROOT/tos"
export CLASSPATH=$CLASSPATH:$TOSROOT/support/sdk/java
export MAKERULES="$TOSROOT/support/make/Makerules"
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$TOSROOT/support/sdk/python

echo "setting up TinyOS on source path $TOSROOT"

Suppose you named this file tinyos.env. There are now at least two possibilites to have these variables accessible in your shell:
a) Place it in <local-tinyos-path> and add the following line to your .bashrc

 source <local-tinyos-path>/tinyos.env

b) Place it as root user in /etc/profile.d/.
To make the changes work, the easiest way is to open a new terminal window.

4) In order to program motes you will need to access the serial ports. This can be done by joining the group that grants this privilege.

 sudo gpasswd -a <your-user> dialout

This change only takes effect when log out and log in again.

Now you should have everything needed to get started. This guide should work on all Ubuntu and Debian based on Squeeze. Has only been tested on Ubuntu though.