Additional Hardware Drivers Installation

Introduction

The standard POCS installation instructions assume you be using the standard PANOPTES hardware, i.e. DSLR cameras controlled via the gphoto2 library. POCS does include support for a range of other hardware, however some require the installation of additional drivers. This page provides instructions on how to do this.

Cameras

SBIG/Diffraction Limited

POCS includes support for SBIG cameras from Diffraction Limited. The vendor supplied drivers must be installed first.

Linux (including Raspberry Pi)

1. Download the Linux Dev Kit. At the time of writing this is only available via the SBIG ftp site, at ftp://ftp.sbig.com/pub/devsw/LinuxDevKit.tar.gz
2. Extract the compressed archive to a convenient location, e.g. tar xvzf ~/Downloads/LinuxDevKit.tar.gz ~/Build/
3. Find the driver library for your system. These are distributed as compiled shared (dynamically linked) library files (.so).
   • For x86_64 use LinuxDevKit/x86/c/lib64/libsbigudrv.so
   • For 32 bit x86 use LinuxDevKit/x86/c/lib32/libsbigudrv.so
   • For 32 bit ARM (e.g. Raspberry Pi) use LinuxDevKit/arm/c/lib/libsbigudrv.so
4. Either copy the appropriate libsbigudrv.so file to /usr/local/lib/ or make a symbolic link, e.g. sudo ln -s ~/Build/LinuxDevKit/arm/c/lib32/libsbigudrv.so /usr/local/lib/).
5. Either copy or link the LinuxDevKit/udev/51-sbig-debian.rules file to /etc/udev/rules.d/, e.g. sudo ln -s ~/Build/LinuxDevKit/udev/51-sbig-debian.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

Mac OS X

1. Download the current SBIG Universal Driver for OS X, either by going to the Diffraction Limited website, navigating to a camera product page (e.g. STF-8300M), clicking the 'DOWNLOADS' tab, and scrolling down to 'SBIGUDrv', or downloading it directly from the SBIG ftp site at ftp://ftp.sbig.com/pub/SBIGDriverInstallerUniv.dmg
2. Double click the downloaded disk image file to mount it, or Ctrl-click > Open with > Disk Image Mounter. If that doesn't work you may have to open the Disk Utility app and use File > Open Disk Image
3. Once the disk image is mounted open it in Finder. There will be a .pkg file inside.
4. Ctrl-click > Open with > Package Installer to open the .pkg file. You may be prompted to confirm that you really want to open it.
5. The installer will now open. Follow the prompts to complete the installation.

Finger Lake Instruments

POCS includes support for cameras from Finger Lake Instruments (FLI). Some modification/configuration of the vendor supplied drivers is required first.

Linux

Installation on Linux requires installing a kernel module and building a shared library from the SDK.

Kernel module

1. Download the latest Linux kernel module from the FLI Software page, in the 'Development' column on the right. At the time of writing this was version 1.3.2, at http://www.flicamera.com/downloads/sdk/fliusb-1.3.2.tgz
2. Extract the compressed archive to a convenient location, e.g. tar xvzf ~/Downloads/fliusb-1.3.2.tgz ~/Build/
3. Change to the directory where you extracted the kernel module source, e.g. cd ~/Build/fliusb-1.3.2
4. Build the kernel module using make. The directory should now contain a fliusb.ko file.
5. Copy the kernel module into the running kernel's module directories, e.g. sudo cp fliusb.ko /lib/modules/uname -r/kernel/drivers/usb/misc/

SDK

Mac OS X