PSoC Creator on Linux (or OSX) w/ or w/o wine
elmo.mntynen Nov 21, 2014 12:16 PMI got introduced to the PSoC 5 chip by the freeSOC project on Kickstarter (and smARtDUINO, which is compatible with it). They are part of the Arduino community.
I've tried installing PSoC Creator with wine, with both Mono and Microsoft .NET. That didn't work. Then, I tried, and succeded in installing the separate .msi packages, but the program crashes at startup (I'll try to investigate those).
Now, some questions:
- Does the .exe installer do anything important other than running the .msi installers?
- How much does your code use native Win32 .dll's? Would it be possible to use only .NET APIs, so as to enable running the program on Mono on Linux or OSX?
- Have you considered open sourcing any parts of your PSoC software? I know you've at least used compilers et' al based on the GPL'd gcc compiler suite. Is there any really important IP that mandates keeping the no cost sofware proprietary?
I'm sure you know about the success of Arduino and friends. The reason those 8 bit AVR based chips have been much more popular among hobbyists than similar PICs, is the fact that Atmel released their IDE to users at no cost. That is what you have done. Now, what has enabled the multi platform and really easy to use Arduino IDE (and Unix like cmd tools), is the fact that the AVRs are well supported by open source tools like GCC (which Atmel contributes to) and AVRDude.
Now, the Cortex-M3 in PSoC 5 is already supported by GCC (which you use through Sourcery G++), but the programmer protocol and the CPLD hardware configuration have no such support in the open source world (there is an abandoned project from 2006 to create such tools). I urge you to consider the Open Source HardWare movement and the hobbyists using linux, OSX, Android, (and Windows) who are constantly inventing new ways to create and better themselves and the world around us. I know you and them would have much to gain from each other, if you welcome them by realeasing some (simple) portable open source tools to usefully use you hardware in non-Win32 environments, with or without GUIs. You could start by releasing a simple open source tool to upload pre compiled binaries to your hardware, which would be useful for user side firmware upgrades etc. Even just documenting the protocol would help, I'm sure some of the freeSOC board owners will start developing tools if given the chance. I' know I would like to buy a freeSOC board if I can use it without the hassle of installing Windows in a VM, I want the user of my hardware or code to have free and easy to use tools on the platform of their choosing.
Thanks, and sorry for this lengthy post. I hope this will be read by the right people ;)