sigrok-cli, sigrok-meter, ut-do4 and ut71(c)

[spikey1973]

hey guys,

i just got my ut71C, and already posted some posts in some topic that seems to be some what on the older side and became rather quite.
so i felt it was oke to make a new topic for this specific question.

I want to use sigrok (pulseview giu) with my 71c un ubuntu 17.04 platfrom.
i got it all already installed, and tried to connect, but i kinda failed misarebly on that part.

according to the sigrok wiki, and people here it's all supposed to work perfectly fine so which leaves me with two option.
either i am indeed as blond as my haircolor dictates.
or something is wrong somewhere in which case i would really like to find out! especially as i also read something about some meteres from a store in germany that left people with some external data logging problems) now mine doesn't sem to fall in that category but still.

so i would like to know what to do (meter and software wise) to get contact between the two.
also i would like to state that i never worked with similar (if it even exists) software before.

any help would be greatly appreciated!

i can supply the following data regarding lsusb for USB HID devices.
$ ls /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usbhid
output:
2-1.3:1.0  2-1.4:1.1  module  remove_id  unbind
2-1.4:1.0  bind       new_id  uevent
so one unbound. but have problems with the identification. so my first should i try to bind 2-1.4:1.0?

$ lsusb
output:
Bus 002 Device 006: ID 18f8:0f99 
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1a86:e008 QinHeng Electronics HID-based serial adapater
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1bcf:280b Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

where Bus 002 Device 006, is my mouse (china origin)

anything else needed for this, will be given on request (except creditcard info ) 

[alm]

Are you sure PulseView supports DMMs? Last time I checked it only supported logic analyzers and oscilloscopes. Try starting with sigrok-cli to see if the backend works before worrying about a GUI.

What does sigrok-cli -V show? Both the versions and if the uni-t-ut71c-ser is in the list. I believe the sigrok version in the Ubuntu 17.04 repositories is pretty ancient, so it may be too old to support the UT-71C. Then try to read from it with sigrok-cli, and once that works worry about if you can get PulseView to support it.

[spikey1973]

thank you for the quick response!

Versions:
sigrok-cli 0.5.0

Using libsigrok 0.3.0 (lib version 2:0:0).
Using libsigrokdecode 0.3.0 (lib version 2:0:0).

And indeed sigrok-cli -V, shows no support for the ut71c-ser so indeed it will be a ould version.
how should i gain a later version?

download and build sigrok-cli-0.7.0.tar.gz?

[alm]

I am not aware of any more recent binary packages for Ubuntu, so my suggestion would be to remove all Ubuntu sigrok/Pulseview packages, download the source for the current release version and build it from source.

[spikey1973]

$ sudo apt-get --purge remove sigrok
$ sudo apt-get --purge remove pulseview
$ sudo apt-get  autoremove

to remove the former packages.

then followed the guidelines in the read.me file in the downloaded package sigrok-cli-0.7.0

Requirements
------------

 - git (only needed when building from git)
 - gcc or clang
 - make
 - autoconf >= 2.63 (only needed when building from git)
 - automake >= 1.11 (only needed when building from git)
 - libtool (only needed when building from git)
 - pkg-config >= 0.22
 - libglib >= 2.32.0
 - libsigrok >= 0.5.0
 - libsigrokdecode >= 0.5.0


Building and installing
-----------------------

In order to get the sigrok-cli source code and build it, run:

 $ git clone git://sigrok.org/sigrok-cli
 $ cd sigrok-cli
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ ./configure
 $ make
 $ make install

but upon:  $ (sudo) git clone git://sigrok.org/sigrok-cli, i recieved the following error message.

Cloning into 'sigrok-cli'...
remote: warning: unable to access '/root/.config/git/attributes': Permission denied
remote: Counting objects: 1696, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1349/1349), done.
remote: Total 1696 (delta 1130), reused 512 (delta 333)
Receiving objects: 100% (1696/1696), 315.27 KiB | 126.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1130/1130), done.

[alm]

Try the git clone without sudo. It should not be accessing /root. Only use sudo for the make install step.

[alm]

Did you try a release version? Like the tarballs on the download page I linked to? Git versions are development versions that might be unstable. Either that or the instructions are out of date and missing some dependency.

[spikey1973]

*post shortened after the fact to keep the thread readable*

yeah i did, but the read.me in that tar.gz told me to "git" so i tried that.
when i didn't libsigrok was missing.

so tried to install libsigrok package but upon ./configure i got this response.

./configure
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
......
checking for LIBSIGROK... no
configure: error: Package requirements (glib-2.0 >= 2.32.0 libusb-1.0 >= 1.0.16 libzip >= 0.10) were not met:

No package 'libzip' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables LIBSIGROK_CFLAGS
and LIBSIGROK_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.

finding a lot of no responses..  specially ofcourse libzip not being found.

really have no idea where to continue

[abraxa]

Hi spikey,

for ubuntu, libzip is installed either as "libzip-dev" or "libzip4" (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libzip), so you can do "sudo apt-get install libzip4" and your run of configure should find it.

btw, your DMM is supported by the serial-dmm driver.

[spikey1973]

*post shortened after the fact to keep the thread readable*

thanks that worked.. !

./configure for libsigrok-0.5.0 worked, but had to use -dev instead of 4, but that was no problem.
additional there were some no's in the list, should i worry about that?

tried now ./ configure for libsigrokdecode-0.5.0 as i found that also in the list for sigrok-cli. but it stopped on " Cannot find Python 3 development headers"
so installed sudo apt-get install python3-dev. which got me to complete that ./configure.

afterwards i make, both of them.. . for both i got an responce: ar: `u' modifier ignored since `D' is the default (see `U')
don't think that stopped the make install though.

afterwards, i make and sudo makeinstall sigrok-cli

seemed to do something, but can't seem get sigrok-cli to run, yet. this is the error message:
matt@Matts:~/sigrok-cli-0.7.0$ sigrok-cli

sigrok-cli: error while loading shared libraries: libsigrok.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

the libsigrok-0.5.0, libsigrokdecode-0.5.0 and sigrok-cli-0.7.0 directories are thre seperate directories in the home directory.  maybe this is the problem? and ifso, where should they be? and can i just simply solve this by cut and paste?

matt@Matts:~$ ls
CloudStation            libsigrokdecode-0.5.0  sketchbook
Desktop                 Lightworks             spacenav
Documents               Music                  svg
Downloads               newspacenav            Templates
Dropbox                 oud space nav          thumb-amy-acker-58tiv7d9cz.jpg
Final design step.step  Pictures               ut71dmm
gCAD3D                  Public                 Videos
gmon.out                RLC recordings
libsigrok-0.5.0         sigrok-cli-0.7.0


also.. once i got sigrok-cli working, is pulse view compatible with dmm's (this dmm in particular ofcourse )

1) and 2) don't seem to be able to recall ./configure. so it is a bit shorter

3):~/libsigrok-0.5.0$ make
4):~/libsigrok-0.5.0$ sudo make install
5):~/libsigrokdecode-0.5.0$ make
6):~/libsigrokdecode-0.5.0$ sudo make install
7):~/sigrok-cli-0.7.0$ ./configure
8 ):~/sigrok-cli-0.7.0$ make
9):~/sigrok-cli-0.7.0$ sudo make install

[abraxa]

additional there were some no's in the list, should i worry about that?

No, for DMM functionality you only need libsigrok's basic USB functionality.
libsigrokdecode is also not needed, so if you have issues building it, just move on.

sigrok-cli: error while loading shared libraries: libsigrok.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Did you perform a "sudo make install" also for libsigrok?

is pulse view compatible with dmm's

Not yet, it's on the to-do list. You can however use sigrok-meter, which is made especially for DMMs. For that, libsigrok's python bindings need to be in place, so the "configure" run of libsigrok should state that it creates them.

Since this entire process must be quite frustrating for you, I would like to point out that this isn't the kind of user experience we envision for you guys. It's not our intention to make you jump through hoops to obtain the software. We, as the providers of the software, depend on the linux distributions to pick up our releases and integrate them into their package managing system. If this doesn't happen, users like you are stuck with old releases. This is unfortunate and there is not much we can do about this, short of taking ownership of those packages within these communities. However, if we did this, development would be severely stifled, so this is not a viable option.

[spikey1973]

@ abraxa

to start, in no way is there any apology necessairy. me as potential user must either do one of the following (IMHO)
a) pay a lot of money and buy a software pack that is fully functional and then complain about it if it isn't
b) look around for "free" software and be gratefull for all the input other people do to get things neatly packaged and ready to work.
c) look around for "free" software and package it them selfs.. and if not capable either wait, or
d) try to learn.. hopefully with aid of people who already know, but at anytime still see there input as a kind favor of a stranger.

 (last one is my personal favorite but sometimes axams and work throw a block on that road)

so sice this all had a lot to do with tstuff i am completely new to i also asked some things on the askubuntu forum.
fortunately there was a very kind "stranger" who put up a lot of effort to get me rolling, as other people here might benefit from that i'll will post the link to that page below here.

so at this moment i have sigrok-cli up and running after a couple of copy pastes.. ofcourse i will be going thrue it to see what i can learn from it all.
in the mean time i will be patiently waiting for you guys to find the time, and drive to add the dmm part to pulseview.
and also have a google for sigrok-meter and try to get that added to the install.

as you will see from the extended explenation in the link, all binding will be neatly in place.

an additional question though. i do not see sigrok-meter in the downloads on the sigrok site. is this already a part of sigrok-cli? and if not where can i find it?

https://askubuntu.com/questions/943104/build-sigrok-cli-from-downloaded-tar-gz-goes-wrong/943189?noredirect=1#comment1498103_943189

[alm]

We, as the providers of the software, depend on the linux distributions to pick up our releases and integrate them into their package managing system. If this doesn't happen, users like you are stuck with old releases. This is unfortunate and there is not much we can do about this, short of taking ownership of those packages within these communities. However, if we did this, development would be severely stifled, so this is not a viable option.

In the case of Debian, there are only individual maintainers. For Sigrok, that is currently Uwe Hermann, who I believe is a Sigrok developer. Now I appreciate that he may not have time for it, but then it would sense to look for a new maintainer in the Sigrok community. Debian is not a large office building in NYC where hundreds of developers are working to update third-party packages. If the Debian package were updated, then it would likely trickle down to derivatives like Ubuntu and Raspbian.

An alternative would be providing a PPA, but obviously that would require a similar amount of resources, so it would only be helpful if you want to update faster than the distribution (e.g. nightly releases). I appreciate that this is a volunteer project and resources and motivation are limited, so choosing more hardware support / features / bug fixes over Debian/Ubuntu binary packages is a fair choice. But pointing fingers at Debian/Ubuntu does not seem right in this case.

[spikey1973]

eh oke,

following the guidelines of the link i posted i ended up with 4 files with .deb extentions. locking a lot like debian packages.
if those indeed are debian packages ready to use by others.. is there a (proper) way to share them?

document names:
libserialport_0.1.1-1_amd64.deb
libsigrock_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb
libsigrockdecode_0.5.0-1_amd64.deb
sigrok-cli_0.7.0-1_amd64.deb

[abraxa]

an additional question though. i do not see sigrok-meter in the downloads on the sigrok site. is this already a part of sigrok-cli? and if not where can i find it?

http://sigrok.org/wiki/Sigrok-meter

In a console window, you can do e.g.

Code: [Select]

git clone git://sigrok.org/sigrok-meter
cd sigrok-meter
make
./sigrok-meter

I'm not sure which of the requirements you'd need to install beforehand, though. Just try to run it, the output in case of an error should give an obvious hint at what's missing

[alm]

following the guidelines of the link i posted i ended up with 4 files with .deb extentions. locking a lot like debian packages.
if those indeed are debian packages ready to use by others.. is there a (proper) way to share them?

You could just upload them somewhere where people can find them, like on a forum or blog. A more proper way might be a Personal Package Archive, but that is more complicated than simply uploading a few debs.

But more important, does it work with your UT71C?

[Marco]

The proper way to share them is in a PPA, but if you don't intend to maintain it don't bother. More abandoned PPAs won't serve much purpose.

PS. this is a bit late now, but one more hacky and less educational alternative to all this would have been to try to take the fedora rawhide RPMs, convert them with Alien and install the resulting debs (just need to add a symlink from /usr/lib64 to /usr/lib first because Ubuntu handle's multi-arch differently).

[abraxa]

In the case of Debian, there are only individual maintainers. For Sigrok, that is currently Uwe Hermann, who I believe is a Sigrok developer. Now I appreciate that he may not have time for it, but then it would sense to look for a new maintainer in the Sigrok community. Debian is not a large office building in NYC where hundreds of developers are working to update third-party packages. If the Debian package were updated, then it would likely trickle down to derivatives like Ubuntu and Raspbian.

I agree with your sentiments but there is one issue here: there is no one in the sigrok community who wants to do it. Uwe did it out of courtesy, tried to find others from the debian community who could take over and failed. So as far as I can see, there's also no one in the debian community who wants to do it. That, and the fact that debian and all its derivates are the only major distributions who don't provide up-to-date sigrok packages, made me write my previous statement.

An alternative would be providing a PPA, but obviously that would require a similar amount of resources, so it would only be helpful if you want to update faster than the distribution (e.g. nightly releases). I appreciate that this is a volunteer project and resources and motivation are limited, so choosing more hardware support / features / bug fixes over Debian/Ubuntu binary packages is a fair choice. But pointing fingers at Debian/Ubuntu does not seem right in this case.

I'm not trying to point fingers, I'm just saying that at the end of the day, it's up to every single distribution to decide whether it wants to make sigrok available or not. More than once have I seen users blame the sigrok team for this ("why do I have to build from source, sigrok is crap for making me do this, yaddayadda"), so my empathy for debian is limited, as you may be able to imagine.

[spikey1973]

@ Marco: no intenstion to do so indeed. not that i'm unwilling but it's just that i ended up with these after following instructions from others, wouldn't know where to start to maintain.

@ Alm: any suggestions on where to upload?
             at the moment i'm not sure. still working on the sigrok-meter installation. unfortunately i'm of the gui generation. i really don't understand much about running software like this as cli.
            i try to use the terminal as much as i possibly can.. but 99% is still graphical. as soon as i have -meter installed i will let you all know.

@abraxa: i tried that well i tried it my way.. i gave this command (trying to learn, so making it myself a little more difficult)
none the less i do understand what i'm supposed to do here (i think), well that is as far as the check install command.

cd $HOME/sigrock_build && \
> sudo -H apt-get install python-qt4 python-pip && \
> sudo -H pip install pyqtgraph && \
> git clone git://sigrok.org/sigrok-meter && \
> cd sigrok-meter && \
> ./configure && make && \
> sudo checkinstall --pakdir "$HOME/sigrock_build" --backup=no --deldoc=yes \
>                   --pkgname sigrok-meter  --fstrans=no \
>                   --deldesc=yes --delspec=yes --default && \
> sudo ldconfig

but i'm getting the following error on make:  Makefile:27: *** "resource compiler not found".  Stop.

at the moment i'm learning a lot about ubuntu, installation, get, make and all other things and the amount of info is a bit much. so it is getting slow.
i will get there... i hope.  but must say this eror message has got me on a halt at the moment. so if you have any suggestions it would be very appreciated.

Kind regards

Matthieu

[abraxa]

Please try "sudo apt-get install pyqt4-dev-tools" - this installs pyrcc4, which is executed by the sigrok-meter makefile when found.

[spikey1973]

thanks indeed that solved it.. ! much appreciated.
but i'm still not there...

upon: ./sigrok-meter, i get an error: No driver given, using demo driver. which is sort of oke as you told me to use serial-dmm
but i also get an giu error: device closed but should be open.

dmm is connected and turned on.

but when i then try: ./sigrok-meter -d serial-dmm
i get  an giu error no driver name serial-dmm

sorry

[alm]

Not having used sigrok-meter, I am pretty sure you should use the uni-t-ut71c driver and probably pass the correct USB vendor ID (for HID), e.g. -d uni-t-ut71c:conn=1a86.e008. Use uni-t-ut71c-ser with the appropriate /dev/ttyUSB or ACM device (e.g. uni-t-ut71c-ser:conn=/dev/ttyUSB0) for a cable that emulates an RS-232 port. Both are based on the sigrok-cli manpage. The sigrok-meter manpage may contain similar information. Can not blame the sigrok documentation here, at least for sigrok-cli.

Edit: fixed spelling for future readers.

[spikey1973]

just to be clear. i am not blaming anyone for anything!

i'm using ut-d04 and indeed the USB HID vendor ID is 1a86.e008.
so taking your advice i tried both:
 ./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-ut71c-ser:conn=1a86.e008
and
./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-71c:conn=1a86.e008

but then read again into sigrok-cli read-me. and i found i t most likely be:  ./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-ut71c-ser:conn=1a86.e008

which worked.

ofcourse followed by another error: being:
cli: - sr: serial: Attempt to open serial port with invalid parameters.
giu: - no devices found.

[alm]

i'm using ut-d04 and indeed the USB HID vendor ID is 1a86.e008.
so taking your advice i tried both:
 ./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-ut71c-ser:conn=1a86.e008
and
./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-71c:conn=1a86.e008

What results did you get?

but then read again into sigrok-cli read-me. and i found i t most likely be:  ./sigrok-meter -d uni-t-ut71c-ser:conn=1a86.e008
which worked.

How is that any different to the first one you tried? Worked how?

ofcourse followed by another error: being:
cli: - sr: serial: Attempt to open serial port with invalid parameters.
giu: - no devices found.

I imagine it is complaining about not finding a serial port (this is the -ser driver) since you pointed it at a HID. Look here for the kind of parameters it would expect.

How about trying something like:

Code: [Select]

sigrok-cli --scan
sigrok-cli -d uni-t-ut71c:conn=1a86.e008 --scan

If both work:

Code: [Select]

sigrok-cli -d uni-t-ut71c:conn=1a86.e008 -O analog --samples 5

That is really no more complicated than using sigrok-meter, and might provide more diagnostic information and is not marked as 'work in progress, not yet suitable for everyday use.' If that works, then I would start looking at sigrok-meter (with the same driver options).

Edit: fixed spelling for future readers.

[spikey1973]

@ Alm: no driver named: .......
the problem was an additional ut, so uni-t-ut71c-ser, instead of uni-t-71c-ser you typed the second time.. this should teach me to not just copy/past easy enough typ-o to make.

upon: sigrok-cli --scan:
The following devices were found:
demo - Demo device with 12 channels: D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 A0 A1 A2 A3

upon: sigrok-cli -d uni-t-ut71c:conn=1a86.e008 --scan
The following devices were found:
uni-t-ut71c - UNI-T UT71C with 1 channel: P1

upon: sr: usb: Failed to open device: LIBUSB_ERROR_ACCESS.
Failed to open device

tried running it as sudo: (felt like a permission problem)
sr: uni-t-dmm: HID feature report error: LIBUSB_ERROR_PIPE.
sr: uni-t-dmm: HID chip init failed: -1.

googled this. but what i read went way above my paygrade
.

That is really no more complicated than using sigrok-meter, and might provide more diagnostic information and is not marked as 'work in progress, not yet suitable for everyday use.' If that works, then I would start looking at sigrok-meter (with the same driver options).

your are propbably right.. just want to make sure it is all working fine.. so i know i can rely on the idea that when something goes wrong trying to use it. it is user error and not installation or hardware error.
when i come to that point i will give it a rest, at least for to day. my head is nearly exploding and i'm not thinking clearly anymore. the thing is i feel like i'm getting there. almost...
the other thing is..  i need to study for an important exam so.. that should have president.!