blog.crox.net

This is a follow-up to my previous post about using the aXbo Sleep Phase Alarm Clock (SPAC) on linux. You should probably read that post first.

There is now a new 2.0 version of the "aXbo research" software (thanks rac for the hint). It is quite similar to version 1.0, with the added feature that you can upload new sounds to the device. It's still a Java application, using a number of Open Source components => Look at NOTICE.txt, and from what I saw it seems it's being developed on OS X - a shame that they don't provide an easy way to use it with linux: while version 1.0 was launched using Java Web Start, version 2.0 is installed locally in an OS-specific way which makes it a bit more complicated for the (not Mac / Windows) users. As far as I can tell the software should work fine on all platforms supported by RXTX (as long as there is a driver for the USB->serial converter of course)...

Here are the steps that allowed me to successfully run version 2.0 on linux:

- download aXbo_windows_2_0_11.exe

- run wine aXbo_windows_2_0_11.exe, this will install version 2.0.11 (don't install the drivers, only the application)

- at the end of the install process, you can directly start the program. for me this triggered the download of aXbo_windows_2_0_13.exe (why they don't offer this file for download directly is a mystery)

- install / update to version 2.0.13 using wine again (and again, don't install the drivers, only the application)

At this point you can already use aXbo research through wine. I didn't test the sound upload, but the rest seemed to work fine, although there were some glitches with the display. Here is how to run it without wine:

- create a directory to hold the files, eg mkdir ~/aXbo-2.0

- copy the .jar files to that directory, eg cp -rp ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/aXbo2/lib ~/aXbo-2.0/

- move axbo.jar one directory up, eg mv ~/aXbo-2.0/lib/axbo.jar ~/aXbo-2.0/

- get librxtxSerial.so, eg cd ~/aXbo-2.0/lib/ ; wget http://blog.crox.net/uploads/librxtxSerial.so

- run the application like this: cd ~/aXbo-2.0/ ; java -Djava.library.path=lib/ -jar axbo.jar


NOTE / RXTX:

- the librxtxSerial.so offered for download here is 32-bit, which means you need to run a 32-bit JRE.

- instead, you can also install a distribution-provided librxtxSerial.so, eg with Gentoo 64-bit:
emerge rxtx
java -Djava.library.path=/usr/lib64/rxtx-2/ -jar axbo.jar
(in this example you obviously have to select a 64-bit JRE)

(RXTX is distributed under a variant of the LGPL license, you'll find more info on the RXTX website.)


NOTE / Sounds Upload:

Be aware that the sounds upload function will upload the whole package at once, and that it will replace the sounds currently on the device, and not just add new ones.

UPDATE: there is now a version 2.0, see my new post

it's actually pretty easy :

- connect the aXbo to your linux computer using the provided USB cable

- download the JNLP file from their web interface (you need to register first)

- run

javaws aXbo.jnlp

Note: on my 64-bit Gentoo system I had to use "Sun 32bit JRE 1.6.0.07 [emul-linux-x86-java-1.6]" as user VM for this to work.

Then from the menu use the "find aXbo" function. If it fails, check

dmesg

to make sure that the USB connection has been properly initialised - the aXbo has a usb-to-serial converter inside:

(from lsusb)

ID 10c4:ea60 Cygnal Integrated Products, Inc.

(from dmesg)

[31426.366845] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=10c4, idProduct=ea60
[31426.366856] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[31426.366863] usb 2-2: Product: CP2102 USB to UART Bridge Controller
[31426.366868] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Silicon Labs
[31426.366871] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 0001

The proper usbserial module (cp2101) was automatically loaded on my Gentoo system and a friend's Ubuntu laptop (both with fairly recent kernels though).

Now I'd like to bypass the GUI to be able to set the clock and download the data from the command line, but that's another story...