Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: ralphrmartin on February 13, 2015, 05:30:00 pm
Title: ADALM1000 - no manuals, (source only) software for Mac / Linux unusable
Post by: ralphrmartin on February 13, 2015, 05:30:00 pm
Anyone bought an ADALM1000? - If not, don't. http://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m1k (http://wiki.analog.com/university/tools/m1k) It looks quite neat as a learning tool. However, when the box came, it said the analog site has manuals, demos, and software for Windows / Mac / Linux. Sadly the Analog site lacks any of these. The Pixelpulse software is only to be found on github. There are no binaries, and the build instructions for a Mac / Linux are garbled at best, needing some debugging. So, I'm sending mine back. The hardware may be great (maybe), but lacking these resources, it is useless. I'm shocked analog could release something in this state.
Title: Re: ADALM1000 - no manuals, (source only) software for Mac / Linux unusable
Post by: Lukas on February 13, 2015, 07:47:07 pm
Yeah, the linux build instructions are missing some steps. It built just fine for me with:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/signalspec/pixelpulse2 cd pixelpulse2/ mkdir build cd build/ qmake .. make ./pixelpulse2
Title: Re: ADALM1000 - no manuals, (source only) software for Mac / Linux unusable
Post by: ralphrmartin on February 15, 2015, 08:42:08 pm
I tried following the instructions to run the prebuilt Windows version, on Windows 7. It just crashes with "PixelPulse2 stopped working".
Does it run and do anything after building it on Linux?
Title: Re: ADALM1000 - no manuals, (source only) software for Mac / Linux unusable
Post by: shabaz on February 16, 2015, 01:16:12 am
Yes, it works very well on Linux! Step-by-step instructions are available. See here: http://www.element14.com/community/groups/test-and-measurement/blog/2015/02/14/getting-started-with-the-active-learning-module-adalm1000 (http://www.element14.com/community/groups/test-and-measurement/blog/2015/02/14/getting-started-with-the-active-learning-module-adalm1000)
Title: Re: ADALM1000 - no manuals, (source only) software for Mac / Linux unusable
Post by: ralphrmartin on February 16, 2015, 10:58:14 pm
Unfortunately, there are still many issues. E.g.
Those instructions are for Ubuntu, but do not work on Debian (but don't blame Shabaz, he's trying to help) - they are specific to a particular variant of unix. Various people are reporting problems finding libusb even after following instructions - not just on Linux but other systems too.
To build this software needs Qt5, but unfortunately other software may need Qt4 and not be compatible with Qt5. At least in some cases, both cannot be installed together.
Ultimately, while I realise this is a low cost device, the claims on the back of the box and on the Analog web site (e.g. of tutorials, examples and the like) are far different to reality.
Life is too short to debug someone's hobby project which is being marketed as if it were a serious learning tool.