Announcing sigrok - a signal analysis software suite

[Alex Gagniuc]

Hi all,

I'm Alex, a 'part-time' open hardware and software hacker. I'd like to
talk a
little bit about sigrok, a signal analysis software suite that supports various
device types, such as logic analyzers, MSOs, oscilloscopes, multimeters, LCR
meters, sound level meters, thermometers, hygrometers, anemometers, light meters,
dataloggers, function generators, spectrum analyzers, power supplies, GPIB
interfaces, and more.

sigrok started as flosslogic, a small project by Uwe Hermann. Uwe disliked the
crappy nature (and Windows-only nature) of software for his logic analyzers. He
started to work on a free software replacement for that software. Soon after, he
teamed up with Bert Vermeulen, who was working on exactly the same thing, for
exactly the same reasons as Uwe. Since then, the project has grown, and more
enthusiasts (including myself) have pitched in.

This weekend, they had their most spectacular release. I say spectacular, because,
for the first time since the start of the project, they have released a usable
GUI, PulseView. While some half-baked GUIs have existed in the past, they were
slow to render, and had nothing but the most basic functionality. Joel Holdsworth
has decided to start a new GUI from scratch, and has been working on PulseView for
over a year, which finally came to a (pleasantly) usable very recently.

As it stands, the sigrok project has the following components:

libsigrok - the interface to the hardware devices
libsigrokdecode - library for decoding protocols (any data collected with sigrok)
sigrok-cli - command-line interface
pulseview - The best GUI ever written for sigrok
sigrok-firmware - binary firmware for some devices
sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw - GPLv2 firmware for Cypress FX2-based logic analysers.

I was able to get most of the packages approved, and they should be available in
the official Fedora repositories soon (f18 and f19). I think sigrok can be a great
asset to Fedora Electronics Lab.

I want to avoid paraphrasing their wiki in its entirety :). The project's home is
at http://sigrok.org .

I hope you will find sigrok to be of value to Fedora Electronics Lab.

Alex

P.S.

sigrok is always spelled without capitalization, even at the beginning of a
sentence. :)

P.P.S.

sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw is still in need of review. If you'd like to help, please
head on here:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=922246

[Shakthi Kannan]

Hi Alex:

--- On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 12:16 AM, Alex G. <mr.nuke.me(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
| I'd like to talk a
| little bit about sigrok, a signal analysis software suite that
supports various
| device types, such as logic analyzers, MSOs, oscilloscopes, multimeters, LCR
| meters, sound level meters, thermometers, hygrometers, anemometers,
light meters,
| dataloggers, function generators, spectrum analyzers, power supplies, GPIB
| interfaces, and more.
\--

Good stuff!

---
I think sigrok can be a great
| asset to Fedora Electronics Lab.
\--

Will include the packages in FEL when the package is pushed to the Fedora repos.

Regards,

SK

-- 
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com

[Alex Gagniuc]

On 05/15/2013 08:01 AM, Shakthi Kannan wrote:
>  Hi Alex:
>  
>  --- On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 12:16 AM, Alex G. <mr.nuke.me(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  | I'd like to talk a
>  | little bit about sigrok, a signal analysis software suite that
>  supports various
>  | device types, such as logic analyzers, MSOs, oscilloscopes, multimeters, LCR
>  | meters, sound level meters, thermometers, hygrometers, anemometers,
>  light meters,
>  | dataloggers, function generators, spectrum analyzers, power supplies, GPIB
>  | interfaces, and more.
>  \--
>  
>  Good stuff!
>  
>  ---
>  I think sigrok can be a great
>  | asset to Fedora Electronics Lab.
>  \--
>  
>  Will include the packages in FEL when the package is pushed to the Fedora repos.
>   
The following packages are in the f18 and f19 repos:
libsigrok
libsigrokdecode
sigrok-cli (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
pulseview (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw
sigrok-firmware-free
sigrok-firmware-nonfree

Feel free to add them.

Alex

>  Regards,
>  
>  SK
>

[Shakthi Kannan]

Hi,

--- On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Alex G. <mr.nuke.me(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
| The following packages are in the f18 and f19 repos:
| libsigrok
| libsigrokdecode
| sigrok-cli (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
| pulseview (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
| sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw
| sigrok-firmware-free
| sigrok-firmware-nonfree
\--

I have added pulseview and sigrok-cli to comps-{f18, f19, f20}.xml.in
files in comps/. These pull in libsigrok and libsigrokdecode.

SK

-- 
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com

[Alex Gagniuc]

On 06/05/2013 05:50 AM, Shakthi Kannan wrote:
>  Hi,
>  
>  --- On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 8:29 PM, Alex G. <mr.nuke.me(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  | The following packages are in the f18 and f19 repos:
>  | libsigrok
>  | libsigrokdecode
>  | sigrok-cli (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
>  | pulseview (depends on libsigrok and libsigrokdecode
>  | sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw
>  | sigrok-firmware-free
>  | sigrok-firmware-nonfree
>  \--
>  
>  I have added pulseview and sigrok-cli to comps-{f18, f19, f20}.xml.in
>  files in comps/. These pull in libsigrok and libsigrokdecode.
>   
Thanks!

Is there a chance we can also add sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw? It's an open
source firmware for logic analyzers based on Cypress FX2 chips. One such
device is only $13 on DealExtreme, and is very popular among hobbyists.
With this package, it will work out of the box.

Alex

>  SK
>

[Shakthi Kannan]

Hi,

--- On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 10:19 PM, Alex G. <mr.nuke.me(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
| Is there a chance we can also add sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw?
\--

I asked the Fedora spins group, and they said that as long as it is a
valid Fedora package, it can be included in a spin. There also exists
a hardware-support group that contains all the firmware packages,
which gets installed in non-minimal Fedora installations.

Anyways, I have added sigrok-firmware-fx2lafw to electronic-lab for
comps-{f18, f19, f20}.xml.in files.

Regards,

SK

-- 
Shakthi Kannan
http://www.shakthimaan.com