Table of Contents

Installing PixyMon on Linux

1. Introduction

The following procedure will walk you through building PixyMon for Linux. This procedure assumes the following:

The Mint distribution of Linux can be downloaded here: http://www.linuxmint.com

Instructions for updating the Pixy firmware are here: Uploading New Firmware

Although this procedure uses Linux Mint, it should work with any Linux distribution that uses the Debian package manager (e.g. Ubuntu).

2. Procedure

2.1. Install dependencies for building PixyMon

Start the terminal application:

2.1.1. Install git

In the terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install git

2.1.2. Install libusb-1.0-0-dev

In the terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev

2.1.3. Install QT

In the terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install qt5-default

sudo apt-get install qt5-qmake

sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev-tools

2.1.4. Install g++ (compiler)

In the terminal window type:

sudo apt-get install g++

2.2. Building PixyMon

2.2.1. Download Pixy source code

In the terminal window type:

git clone https://github.com/charmedlabs/pixy2.git

2.2.2. Run the build script

Change directory to the pixy build tools folder and run the build script.

In the terminal window type:

cd pixy2/scripts
./build_pixymon_src.sh

The script will probably take a few minutes to complete. Perhaps this is a good time to make a cup of tea?

2.2.3. Add permissions for Pixy USB interface

In order to communicate with Pixy over USB as a non-root user you must set permissions for Pixy.

To do this copy the 'pixy.rules' file to '/etc/udev/rules.d'

In the terminal window type:

cd ../src/host/linux/
sudo cp pixy.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/

2.3. Running PixyMon

2.3.1. Connect Pixy to your Linux system using a USB micro cable

2.3.2. Change directory to the PixyMon build folder

In the terminal window type:

cd ../../../build/pixymon/bin/

2.3.3. Run PixyMon

In the terminal window type:

./PixyMon

What's next? Let's teach Pixy an object!