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blink1-tool

  • Command-line Tools and C library for blink(1) USB RGB LED

    Build Status linux Build Status macos Build Status windows

    This is an official collection of C/C++ commandline tools for controlling the blink1 USB RGB LED.

    This code lives at https://github.com/todbot/blink1-tool.

    For pre-built binaries, see the Releases page.

    The current tools are:

    • blink1-tool -- command-line tool for controlling blink(1)
    • blink1control-tool -- blink1-tool for use with Blink1Control (uses HTTP REST API)
    • blink1-tiny-server -- (README) Simple HTTP API server to control blink1, uses blink1-lib
    • blink1-lib -- C library for controlling blink(1)
    • blink1-mini-tool -- commandline tool using libusb-0.1 and minimal deps
    • blink1raw -- small example commandline tool using Linux hidraw

    Type make help for a full list.

    Also see in this directory:

    • scripts -- examples shell scripts using blink1-tool

    Supported platforms

    Supported platforms for blink1-tool and blink1-lib:

    • Mac OS X 10.6.8, 10.7+
    • Windows XP+ (built with MinGW & MSYS)
    • Linux (most all, primary development on Ubuntu)
    • FreeBSD 8.2+
    • Raspberry Pi (Raspian)
    • BeagleBone (Ubuntu)
    • OpenWRT / DD-WRT
    • ... just about anything else with Gnu Make & a C-compiler

    In general, the blink1-tool builds as a static binary where possible, eliminating the need for shared library dependencies on the target. However, static builds can be problematic for some systems with different libusb implementations, so doing make EXEFLAGS= will generally build a non-static version.

    OS-specific Notes

    Linux (including Raspberry Pi)

    To use blink(1) as a non-root user, udev rules must be installed. On Debian-like systems (Ubuntu, Raspian), these udev rules are installed with:

    sudo cp 51-blink1.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/51-blink1.rules
    sudo udevadm control --reload
    sudo udevadm trigger

    Building from source

    In general you can do:

    git clone https://github.com/todbot/blink1-tool
    cd blink1-tool
    make

    On Linux you will need to install some requirements beforehand.

    If your OS is not detected automatically, you can force it with something like:

    OS=linux make

    To see the supported platforms, please consult the Makefile

    Build variants

    There are two primary USB libraries that blink1-tool can be built for:

    • USBLIB_TYPE=HIDAPI -- Uses the feature-rich cross-platform hidapi library (default)
    • USBLIB_TYPE=HIDDATA -- Uses a simple, cross-platform hiddata library (included)

    For Linux, there are to HIDAPI_TYPEs you can choose from:

    • HIDAPI_TYPE=HIDRAW -- Uses standard hidraw kernel API for HID devices (default)
    • HIDAPI_TYPE=LIBUSB -- Uses lower-level libusb commands (good for older Linuxes)

    To compile for a particular USBLIB_TYPE or HIDAPI_TYPE, specify them when buildling:

    HIDAPI_TYPE=LIBUSB make

    OS-specific prerequisites for compiling

    If you have the ability to compile programs on your system, you may already have everything you need to compile blink1-tool.

    Linux (Debian-flavored, including Raspberry Pi)

    • In a terminal, install pre-reqs and build:
    • sudo apt-get install libudev-dev pkg-config build-essential
    • sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev (optional, only for libusb variant)
    • cd blink1-tool
    • make
    • HIDAPI_TYPE=libusb make (if you instead you want libusb version)

    FreeBSD

    • Install pre-reqs and build:
    • sudo pkg install gmake gcc git libiconv
    • cd blink1-tool
    • gmake
    • sudo ./blink1-tool --red --flash 3

    MacOS

    • Xcode
    • In Terminal, setup Xcode and build:
    • xcode-select --install
    • cd blink1-tool
    • make

    Windows

    • Install Visual Studio 2015 or 2019
    • Install MSYS2: https://www.msys2.org/
    • In MSYS2 bash shell:
    • pacman -S base-devel make git zip unzip mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc
    • export PATH=${PATH}:/c/msys64/mingw64/bin
    • export PATH=${PATH}:"/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0/VC/bin"
    • export PATH=${PATH}:'/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2019/BuildTools/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.29.30133/bin/Hostx64/x64'"
    • make

    Other OSes

    See the blink1-tool/Makefile for details

    Using blink1-lib in your C/C++ project

    See Makefile for your platform

    Docker and blink(1)

    [this may be out of date after the repo move]

    To build the image from the Dockerfile

    • docker build -t robtec/blink1 .

    Running the container

    • docker run -d --privileged robtec/blink1

    Note the --privileged tag, docker needs this to access the hosts USB controllers

    Docker resources