Install instructions

OWL Firmware
#1

Folks, you need to work a bit on these instructions.
While I will be able to figure it out eventually, they are somewhat vague.
For instance, I tried to clone the git repo to build the new firmware and got this:

probot:~ howard$ git clone git@github.com:pingdynasty/OwlWare.git
Cloning into ‘OwlWare’…
Permission denied (publickey).
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

Not off to a good start.

And the prerequisites?
“Download the GNU ARM toolchain for your operating system. Unzip in the Tools directory and (if necessary) edit Makefile.common to point to the right TOOLROOT directory.”

Unzip into what Tools directory? The owlware that would not leave git? It’s a prerequisite, I should have it before i check out the rest, right? And I did not find the Makefile.common…

Edit: got a git account and downloaded the stuff, but I’m having trouble with the stlink files. Not rally sure what goes where, as the make fails with complaints about paths.

While I may be a klutz here, there should probably be an easy “getting started” path that is a bit more plug&play.

Enough of the negative ranting!
The pedal is Awesome, it looks good, feels professional and sounds good!(though some of the patches are having some distortion/noise issues, but those are off course fixable).
I’m really looking forward to fiddling with it. Next up is opening it and admiring the innards!

Best regards
Howard Gittela

#2

Hi Howard,
Thanks for your feedback, this is exactly what we need right now to improve the ease of use.
We spent a lot of time on the hardware side, and I am glad you are happy with the result. The software side is improving quickly and we will make sure that the help files are more clear in the coming days.

Best regards from the team.
Giom

#3

Edited the OwlWare readme file for more clarity.
Perhaps we should also create help files more targeted towards specific profiles :

  • musician with no coding experience
  • developers
  • experienced developers

What are your thoughts ?

#4

I think it’s hard to know what exact profiles would be, I count myself an experienced developer, but not in DSP applications or embedded systems. And, having said that. I still didn’t read the instructions properly and made several stupid mistakes! The difference between developer and experienced developer is probably minimal really.

I suspect there’s a place for ‘simple as possible’ instructions (maybe binary packages) and those of us who want to build from source (most at this stage I suspect) just need carefully written, detailed instructions. Writing good documentation is time-consuming, so I understand why Rebel Tech have been concentrating on getting it working so far. IME the best way to do this is to get someone to make everything work from a clean machine and document exactly what they did at each stage, ideally not someone directly involved in the software.

#5

Good points all.
I’d like to make zip files of OwlWare available, with all dependencies included, for the main three platforms: Linux/Win/Mac.

I got a bit stuck building statically linked binaries of dfu-util though - it should be easy, but I ended up confusing both clang and myself! Will try to have a solution ready next week sometime.

Documentation is unfortunately (but necessarily) the last thing to get done. Since we’re still very much developing the software, it’s also a bit of a moving target. Things are starting to solidify though, and will get much better. Please do keep the feedback and contributions coming: as an open-source project we depend on you!

#6

An all-in-one package sounds like a good idea for now. Eventually one could probably host repositories for deb and rpm files.
I actually managed to brick my Owl while trying to update it, so I’ll have to figure it out in order to get it up and running again.

My point of view on this stems from years of electronics tinkering and a lot of sysadmin experience, including maintaining buildsystems on linux. Oh, and guitarplaying, og course. :slight_smile:

A good place to look for ideas would probably be the Arduino project(which I guess you guys probably know quite well!).
The patches for the Owl are about the same level of complexity as the Arduino sketches in many ways, and they’ve managed to make a complete IDE very friendly looking and easy to use. Far better than the Netduino, for instance, which requires Visual Studio among other things.

Baking the whole buildsystem, with dfu-util and all, in to a simple IDE would probably be the best way to attract newbies like myself.

:smiley:
…/~howard