# AltOS
-This is Keith's "operating system" for [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum/).
+AltOS is the name of Keith's firmware "operating system" for
+[TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum/) and [TeleDongle](../TeleDongle/).
-## Motivation ##
+In addition to the firmware for [TeleMetrum](../TeleMetrum) and
+[TeleDongle](../TeleDongle) boards, the AltOS source tree also includes a
+number of utilities useful for monitoring and logging telemetry during flight,
+post-processing flight data for analysis, and utilities for updating firmware,
+and developing and debugging new functionality. The first generation of these
+utilities were Linux-only, but our current second-generation software written
+largely in [Java](http://java.com) with a small platform-specific library
+works identically on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems!
-[FreeRTOS](http://freertos.org) turned out to be too heavy for our needs, so
-Keith started over from scratch and wrote something that does just what we
-needed.
+The firmware and associated software are licensed [GPL version 2](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
-## Features ##
+## Available Versions ##
-### User View ###
+[[!inline pages="./releases/*.mdwn and !*/Discussion" show="10"
+actions=no ]]
-### Developer View ###
+The latest source is always available from [git.gag.com](http://git.gag.com)
+in the project [fw/altos](http://git.gag.com/?p=fw/altos;a=summary).
-* Licenses
- * The software is licensed [GPL version 2](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
+## Features ##
-## Problems ##
+More documentation is coming soon, but in the meantime,
+most operations in the second-generation GUI are pretty easy to figure out.
-## Artifacts ##
+## Platform Specific Notes ##
-The source available from [git.gag.com](http://git.gag.com) in the project
-[fw/altos](http://git.gag.com/?p=fw/altos;a=summary).
+### Linux ###
-Debian packages are also available:
+If you use [Debian](http://www.debian.org), then a pre-built package for
+32-bit x86 is currently available here:
-* Install our key in your packaging system:
wget -O - http://altusmetrum.org/apt/altusmetrum.key | apt-key add -
-* Install our sources.list content:
wget -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/altos.list http://altusmetrum.org/apt/altos.list
-* Install the package:
+ apt-get update
apt-get install altos
+
+If you use some other distribution of Linux, then
+a Linux package of our second-generation Java bits that
+should run on any distribution with a modern Java version is also
+available. Unlike the Debian pacakge, which depends on various libraries
+already part of the Debian distribution, this package includes a "fat" jar
+file with all of the Java libraries that aren't part of the basic Java runtime
+environment included, so it should "just work" on any system with
+Java 6. Development and testing is done with OpenJDK 6, but current
+downloads from [java.com](http://java.com) should be fine too.
+
+If you'd rather build from source, our source tree includes documentation on
+how to build packages for various
+Linux systems such as [Arch Linux](http://www.archlinux.org), and the
+debian/ directory contains all the control
+files for building the Debian packages on other architectures or derivatives
+such as [Ubuntu](http://ubuntu.com).
+
+Bdale has also created a theme for
+[GDM](http://projects.gnome.org/gdm/) that he uses on his primary notebook,
+and the
+[Simple Login Manager](http://slim.berlios.de/) that he uses on all of his
+other machines and which is ideally suited for machines dedicated to AltOS
+ground station use. It includes a photo of a drag-race between
+nearly-identical rockets
+built by Keith and Bdale, that was the first time either of us gave TeleMetrum
+complete control of a rocket flight without some other backup! See the themes/
+directory in the source tree (the themes are included in the Debian package).
+
+### Mac ###
+
+A Mac OS X package that is compatible with
+versions 10.5 "Leopard" and later (including 10.6 "Snow Leopard") is
+available. The Mac operating system includes Java, and all Altus Metrum
+products show up as simple USB serial ports, so this should just work
+with no additional drivers or other dependency issues. Older versions of
+the Mac operating system come with Java versions that are too old for use
+with Altus Metrum software, and we know of no way to update the Java version
+other than upgrading to a newer operating system.
+
+### Windows ###
+
+Our Windows package is known to work on at least some flavors of XP, Vista, and
+Windows 7 Enterprise. If you don't already have Java installed,
+download and install a current Java 6 version from [java.com](http://java.com)
+first. Then download our installer and run it. Windows already has
+the required USB serial device driver, and our package should do the right
+things to bind it to our devices, but if you get a complaint about the device
+being unrecognized, try pointing to the copy of the telemetrum.inf file
+included in the package directory manually. Reports of success or failure
+with other versions of Windows would be appreciated!
projects / web / altusmetrum / blobdiff