Manual installation using RPM packages
Manual installation on your host OS with RPMs
Currently, the TinyOS Core Working Group supports TinyOS on two platforms: Cygwin (Windows) and Linux. There have been some successful efforts to getting TinyOS environments working on Mac OSX, but OSX is not supported by the Core WG.
Installing a TinyOS enviromnent has five basic steps; Windows requires an extra step, installing Cygwin, which is a UNIX-like environment. The steps are:
- Installing a Java 1.6 JDK. Java is the most common way of interacting with mote base stations or gateways that are plugged into a PC or laptop.
- Windows only. Install Cygwin. This gives you a shell and many UNIX tools which the TinyOS environment uses, such as perl and shell scripts.
- Installing native compilers. As you're compiling code for low-power microcontrollers, you need compilers that can generate the proper assembly code. If you using mica-family motes, you need the AVR toolchain; if you're using telos-family motes, you need the MSP430 toolchain.
- Installing the nesC compiler. TinyOS is written in nesC, a dialect of C with support for the TinyOS concurrency model and component-based programming. The nesC compiler is platform-independent: it passes its output to the native compilers, so that it can take advantage of all of the effort put into their optimizations.
- Installing the TinyOS source tree. If you want to compile and install TinyOS programs, you need the code. Note that with the described method you will only obtain pretty old code. Try to skip that step to get the code and set up the enviroment with the method described in the automatic installation.
- Installing the Graphviz visualization tool. The TinyOS environment includes nesdoc, a tool that automatically generates HTML documentation from source code. Part of this process involves drawing diagrams that show the relationships between different TinyOS components. Graphviz is an open source tool that nesdoc uses to draw the diagrams.
Step 1: Install Java 1.6 JDK
Download and install Sun's 1.6 JDK from http://java.sun.com.
Step 2: Install Cygwin
This step is required for Windows installations only. If you are installing on Linux, skip to step 3.
We have put online the cygwin packages that we've confirmed to be compatible with TinyOS. The instructions below use those packages. You can also upgrade your cygwin environment according to the instructions at www.cygwin.com and your environment will most likely work. A large number of TinyOS users, upgrade their cygwin packages at least monthly from cygnus. However, since we can't test what packages are compatible as they become available daily, we can't confirm that today's set will work.
- Download cygwin-files.zip and unzip it under some local folder say c:/cygwin-files
- Go to c:/cygwin-files and start the setup. Use following instructions.
- When it ask for "Choose A download source", then use "Install from Local Directory" option
- When it ask for "Select Root Install Director" then use following options.
- Root Directory: c:\cygwin (or some other directory without spaces in its name)
- Install for: All Users
- Default Text file type: Unix/Binary
- When it ask for "Select local Package directory" then select "c:/cygwin-files" (Note: this location depends on where you have unzip cygwin-files.zip, in step-1 above we have used c:/cygwin-files)
- Complete the rest of installation process
Some notes:
- You might see a message explaining that you need to reboot because some files are in use. This most likely means that your cygwin DLL is loaded and in-use and, therefore, cannot be replaced. When you reboot, the new DLL will be loaded.
- Related to the above warnings, if you see warnings about the cygwin1.dll not being found, don't worry. All will be well once you reboot and the right DLL is loaded.
- You will need the packages rpm, make and perl which are not installed by default. For a complete installation, flex, bison and python are required, too.
Step 3: Install native compilers
Install the appropriate version of the following (Windows or Linux, avr or msp430 or both) with the rpm command 'rpm -ivh rpm>'. On windows, if you get an error claiming that the rpm was intended for a cygwin_nt-5.1 operating system and you're indeed on a windows computer, bypass the erroneous error by using 'rpm -ivh --ignoreos rpmname'.
Atmel AVR Tools
| Tool | Windows/Cygwin | Linux |
| avr-binutils† | avr-binutils-2.17tinyos-3.cygwin.i386.rpm | avr-binutils-2.17tinyos-3.i386.rpm |
| avr-gcc | avr-gcc-4.1.2-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | avr-gcc-4.1.2-1.i386.rpm |
| avr-libc | avr-libc-1.4.7-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | avr-libc-1.4.7-1.i386.rpm |
| avarice | avarice-2.4-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | avarice-2.4-1.i386.rpm |
| insight (avr-gdb) | avr-insight-6.3-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | avr-insight-6.3-1.i386.rpm |
| avrdude†† | avrdude-tinyos-5.6cvs-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | avrdude-tinyos-5.6cvs-1.i386.rpm |
†If you receive an rpm error that indicates that you have a newer version already installed, try rpm -Uvh --force
††If you receive an rpm error that indicates that you are missing /bin/sh, try rpm -Uvh --force --nodeps
PXA27x Tools (iMote2)†
| Tool | Windows/Cygwin | Linux |
| xscale-elf-binutils | xscale-elf-binutils-2.15tinyos-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | xscale-elf-binutils-2.15-2.i386.deb |
| xscale-elf-gcc | xscale-elf-gcc-3.4.3-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | xscale-elf-gcc-3.4.3-2.i386.deb |
| xscale-elf-newlibc | xscale-elf-newlib-1.11.0tinyos-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | xscale-elf-newlib-1.13.0-1.i386.deb |
| jtag | jflashmm.tgz†† | OpenOCD toolchain |
† Newer versions of GCC can be installed in certain cases. For further info see section iMote2 Compiler from this wiki.
††Copy jflashmm.tgz to /opt directory, untar it (tar xzf jflashmm.tgz), and make sure it's on your path (see Step 5). If the download link above doesn't work, try the cvs.
TI MSP430 Tools
Step 4: Install TinyOS toolchain
The TinyOS-specific tools are the NesC compiler and a set of tools
developed in the tinyos-2.x/tools source code repository. They are
also installed using rpms. If you using the Cygwin version recommended
in these install
instructions, you should install the "Recommended" Windows/Cygwin
nesC RPM.
If you
get strange errors when you try to compile TinyOS programs,
such as the error message "the procedure entry point basename could not be located
in the dynamic link library cygwin1.dll", this is likely due
to a Cygwin version incompatibility: try the "Other" Windows/Cygwin
RPM (1.2.7a).
If you are using Cygwin and installing the nesC RPM
causes an error that the RPM was built for Cygwin,
add the --ignoreos option.
Finally, there are two Linux versions of tinyos-tools, depending on whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit machine. The first is the i386 RPM and the second is the i686 RPM. If you have a 64-bit Java VM, it is important that you install the i686 RPM or otherwise the Java support may not work properly.
TinyOS-specific Tools
| Tool | Windows/Cygwin | Linux | Command |
| NesC | nesc-1.3.1-1.cygwin.i386.rpm (not available yet) | nesc-1.3.1-1.fc9.i386.rpm | rpm -Uvhrpm -Uvh --ignoreos (if Cygwin complains) |
| Tool | Windows/Cygwin | Linux | Command |
| Deputy | tinyos-deputy-1.1-1.cygwin.i386.rpm | tinyos-deputy-1.1-1.fc9.i386.rpm | rpm -irpm -i --ignoreos (if Cygwin complains) |
| Tool | Windows/Cygwin | Linux | Command |
| tinyos-tools | tinyos-tools-1.4.0-3.cygwin.i386.rpm | tinyos-tools-1.4.0-3.ubuntu.i386.rpm | rpm -ivh --force (1.x tree)rpm -Uvh (no 1.x tree) |
Step 5: Install the TinyOS 2.x source tree
Now that the tools are installed, you need only install the tinyos 2.x source tree and then set your environment variables. Install the appropriate version of the following (Window or Linux) with the rpm command 'rpm -ivh rpm'. As with the previous rpms, if you get an error claiming that the rpm was build for an NT computer and you're on a windows NT computer, bypass the erroneous error by using 'rpm -ivh --ignoreos rpmname'.
- Install tinyos-2.x
TinyOS 2.x
Windows/Cygwin Linux TinyOS tinyos-2.1.1-3.cygwin.noarch.rpm tinyos-2.1.1-3.ubuntu.noarch.rpm - Configure your environment
Ideally, you'll put these environment variables in a shell script that will run when your shell starts, but you needn't put such a script under /etc/profile.d. You can use ~/.bash_profile. (in Cygwin, too)
The example settings below assume that the tinyos-2.x installation is in /opt/tinyos-2.x. Change the settings to be correct for where you've put your tinyos-2.x tree. Note that the windows CLASSPATH must be a windows-style path, not a cygwin path. You can generate a windows style path from a cygwin-style path using 'cygpath -w'. For example:
export CLASSPATH=`cygpath -w $TOSROOT/support/sdk/java/tinyos.jar` export CLASSPATH="$CLASSPATH;."
TinyOS 2.x
Environment Variable Windows Linux TOSROOT /opt/tinyos-2.x same as in Cygwin TOSDIR $TOSROOT/tos same as in Cygwin CLASSPATH C:\cygwin\opt\tinyos-2.x\support\sdk\java\tinyos.jar;. $TOSROOT/support/sdk/java/tinyos.jar:. MAKERULES $TOSROOT/support/make/Makerules same as in Cygwin PATH† /opt/msp430/bin:/opt/jflashmm:$PATH same as in Cygwin †Only necessary if you're using MSP430 or iMote2 platform/tools.
In addition to the above environment variables, do the following on Linux machines:
- Change the ownership on your /opt/tinyos-2.x files:
chown -R <your uid> /opt/tinyos-2.x - Change the permissions on any serial (/dev/ttyS<N>), usb
(/dev/tts/usb<N>, /dev/ttyUSB<N>), or parallel (/dev/parport) devices you
are going to use:
chmod 666 /dev/<devicename>
- Change the ownership on your /opt/tinyos-2.x files:
Step 5b (optional): Post-install fixes in Windows/Cygwin environment
If you later experience problems when building some tutorials, running Java tools, ... see Geoffrey Lo's excellent blog post, especially step 2.
Step 6: Installing Graphviz
Go to download page of the Graphviz project and download the appropriate RPM. You only need the basic graphviz RPM (graphviz-); you don't need all of the add-ons, such as -devel, -doc, -perl, etc. If you're not sure what version of Linux you're running,
uname -a
might give you some useful information. Install the rpm with rpm -i rpm-name. In the case of Windows, there is a simple install program, so you don't need to deal with RPMs.
you may need to download graphviz 1.1.0 here
