The AXIOM Beta Manual (ABM) can be downloaded in full, in various languages from AXIOM Beta/AXIOM Beta Manual/Versions

Note: In some instances the instructions we have prepared are written in a manor that can be followed by people without a deep technical knowledge. If you are an advanced user please keep this in mind.

Notes on Userspace: Arch Linux comes with systemd, which has one advantage that the boot process is incredibly fast. Standard tools such as sshd and dhcpcd have been preinstalled.

One idea to store camera relevant parameters inside the camera and provide access from most programming languages is to use a database like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley\DB

1 General Information

1.1 AXIOM Beta Connector Overview

ToDo

1.2 Mountpoints

ToDo

1.3 Accessories and Connected Devices

ToDo

2 Operating Basics

2.1 Getting Started

2.1.1 Prepare Your AXIOM Beta Camera for Use

Use a micro-USB cable to connect the camera's MicroZed development board (USB UART) to a computer. The MicroZed board is the backmost, red PCB. (There is another micro-USB socket on the Power Board, but that is the JTAG Interface.)
Connect the ethernet port on the MicroZed to an ethernet port on your computer. You might have to use an ethernet adapter on newer, smaller machines which come without a native ethernet port.
Connect the AC adapter to the camera's Power Board. (The power cord plugs into an adapter that connects to the Power Board; to power the camera off at a later point, you need not disconnect the adapter from the board but can just unplug the cord from the adapter.)

2.1.2 Prep your computer for use with your camera

To communicate with your AXIOM Beta camera, you will send it instructions via your computer's command line.

In case you have not worked with a shell (console, terminal) much or ever before, we have prepared detailed instructions to help you get you set up. The steps which need to be taken to prepare your machine sometimes differ between operating systems, so pick the ones that are applicable to you(r system).

Note that dollar signs $ placed in front of commands are not meant to be typed in but denote the command line prompt (a signal indicating the computer is ready for user input). It is used in documentation to differentiate between commands and output resulting from commands. The prompt might look different on your machine (e.g. an angled bracket >) and be preceded by your user name, computer name or the name of the directory which you are currently inside.

2.1.2.1 USB to UART drivers

For the USB connection to work, you will need drivers for bridging USB to UART (USB to serial). (Under Linux this works out of the box in most distributions) for other operating systems they can be downloaded from e.g. Silicon Labs' website – pick the software provided for your OS and install it.

2.1.2.2 Serial console

The tool we recommend for connecting to the AXIOM Beta camera via serial port with Mac OS X or Linux is minicom; for connections from Windows machines, we have used Putty.

2.1.2.2.1 Linux setup

Check if you already have minicom installed on your system by trying to run it:

$ minicom

Your system will respond with a message like bash: command not found: minicom if it's not installed.

Install minicom

Install the minicom package like you'd install other software on your system – which could be via a GUI tool or using aptitude or apt-get (for wich you might need super user rights), e.g.:

$ apt-get install minicom

or

$ sudo apt-get install minicom

2.1.2.2.2 Mac OS X setup

You will want to have Homebrew installed on your system to use minicom for serial communication as it is more convenient than using screen.

Note: Homebrew is a package manager for Mac - a piece of software that helps you install other software on your Mac machine, particularly software which is readily available on Linux but which does not come in the form of Mac "applications", which you can download via your web browser and simply drop into your Applications folder.

Open Terminal.app (or your preferred terminal emulator if you have another installed). Terminal can be found via e.g. Spotlight search or via the Finder menu: Go > Utilities > Terminal.app.

Check if you already have brew installed by entering the brew command:

$ brew

If you don't have Homebrew installed, your shell will reply with something like bash: command not found: brew. Otherwise, it will spit out a list of brew commands.

Installing Homebrew

To install Homebrew, go to the Homebrew website and follow the install instructions there. You can simply copy the command used for installing Homebrew from their website and paste it into your terminal.

Installing minicom

With brew installed, you want to install minicom:

$ brew install minicom

Homebrew will tell you if you already have minicom installed on your system (e.g. Warning: minicom-2.7 already installed), otherwise it will install it for you.

2.1.2.2.3 minicom configuration

Once you have minicom installed, you need to configure it in order to talk to the camera. You can either use the configuration file we prepared or configure it yourself, following our step-by-step instructions.

Linux

Go to the minicom setup page:

$ minicom -s

In the "Serial port setup" subpage, check that "Serial Device" 's name is the good one (usually /dev/ttyUSB0 on Linux) and check the baud rate (115200).

Mac

Download the settings file for Mac, unzip it and place it in the etc directory of your minicom install.

The minicom installation can be found in the standard directory used by homebrew, /usr/local/Cellar, in a subdirectory based on the minicom version number, e.g. /usr/local/Cellar/minicom/2.7/etc.

You can also use Homebrew's info command to find minicom on your hard disk:

$ brew info minicom

which will output general information on the installed package, including its install directory e.g.:

minicom: stable 2.7 (bottled)
Menu-driven communications program
https://alioth.debian.org/projects/minicom/
/usr/local/Cellar/minicom/2.7 (17 files, 346.6K) *
  Poured from bottle on ...

2.1.2.3 Serial connection (via USB)

Note: You will not be able to use the terminal window you initiate the serial connection in for anything else (it needs to remain open while you access the camera), so it might make sense to open a separate window just for this purpose.

2.1.2.3.1 Connect using minicom

With minicom installed and properly configured, all you need to do is run the following command to start it with the correct settings:

$ minicom -8 USB0

On successful connection, you will be prompted to enter user credentials (which are needed to log into the camera).

If your terminal remains blank except for the minicom welcome screen/information about your connection settings, try pressing enter. If this still does not result in the prompt for user credentials – while testing, we discovered the initial connection with minicom does not always work – disconnect the camera from the power adapter, then reconnect it: in your minicom window you should now see the camera's operating system booting up, followed by the login prompt. (From then on, connecting with minicom should work smoothly and at most require you to press enter to make the login prompt appear.)

The default credentials are:

user: root
password: beta

Alternatives

Before you can use any tool to initiate a serial connection with your Beta camera you need to know through which special device file it can be accessed.

Once the Beta is connected and powered on (and you installed the necessary drivers), it gets listed as a USB device in the /dev directory of your file system, e.g.
/dev/ttyUSB0 (on Linux)
or
/dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART
/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART (on Mac).

You can use a command such as:

$ ls -al /dev | grep -i usb

to list all USB devices currently connected to your machine.

2.1.2.3.2 Connect using screen

To connect to the camera, use the command:

$ screen file_path 115200

where file_path is the full path to the special device file (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0 or /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART).

You might have to run the command with superuser rights, i.e.:

$ sudo screen file_path 115200

On successful connection, you will be prompted to enter user credentials needed for logging into the camera.
If your terminal remains blank, try pressing enter.

The default credentials are:

user: root
password: beta

2.1.2.3.3 Disconnect

To exit the camera's operating system, use:

$ exit

The result will be a logout message followed by a new login prompt.

To suspend or quit your screen session (and return to your regular terminal window) use one of the following commands:

CTRL+a CTRL+z

CTRL+a CTRL+\