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Documentation Home for Devicescape Universal Wireless Platform | Developer Guide
Development Process Overview
Getting Started with the Devicescape Universal Wireless Platform
The Devicescape Universal Wireless Platform requires at least two systems:
- Development host with the Devicescape Studio installed. (The development host is used to create or edit source packages and build the binary image for the target.)
- Target device which will be a working access point (AP), client, or client bridge once you have configured the device and loaded the target image. (You can have more than one target device in any environment.)
In a nutshell, the development process consists of creating binary RPMs from source RPMs (if you add or modify features), bundling the binary RPMs (packages) needed for the runtime system into a root file system (RFS) image with JFFS support (a jffs2.image file), and then loading that image along with a specialized Linux kernel into the flash on the target system. A binary kernel image is provided with the platform, or you can modify the kernel re-build your own.
You can develop applications fully within the Devicescape Studio or use command line utilities provided to accomplish the same things.
To get familiar with the platform, we suggest that you follow the walk-throughs in this guide of creating a root file system (RFS) image with one of the reference designs first and load it onto the target device. Then as a next step in getting up to speed, experiment with modifying a source RPM, re-building the source, re-creating the RFS image, and redeploy to the target. When you are familiar with the built-in capabilities of the reference designs, you can start adding your own features by creating and building your own source packages and adding in the those binary RPMs. Detailed walk-throughs of these tasks and more are provided in this guide.
Architecture Overview
An overview diagram of runtime target systems reflected in our reference designs is shown below. If you are just getting started with the Devicescape Universal Wireless Platform, we suggest using the reference designs as a starting point upon which to base your first projects.
Figure 1 Runtime Target Architectures
For detailed walk-throughs of how to build the reference designs, see Creating Root File System Images for the Reference Designs.
What's Next?
- See Creating Root File System Images for the Reference Designs for information on how to build each of the reference designs. The process will familiarize you with basic tasks such as creating a project, adding binary RPM packages for the device you want to build, and bundling up the packages into an RFS image which can be programmed onto the flash for the target device. You will get an understanding of which packages are required for each type of device (AP or client) and how to build for the target hardware.
- See Building the Packages for information on how to build a userspace package from a source RPM and how to build a pre-packaged or custom kernel.
- See Board Porting for information on how to port the software to a board other than the supported reference boards.
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