Z-STACK-LINUX-GATEWAY General Questions

1.  What is this package intended to be "installed" on?

x86 Linux box or Linux Virtual Machine on your PC.

2. What is it?  What is actually being installed? Does this install executables?

Yes, it installs executables. (See below an extract of the README from the installation process)

But in short:

• Firmware for the BeagleBone Black.
• Executables pre-compiled for arm-linaro linux, including the Z-Stack Linux Gateway subsystem servers and the sample application. 
• Source files for the sample application
• Lots of documentation

Basically it has all the software/documentation you would need to run a sample application on the BeagleBone Black and control some (example) ZigBee devices (lights, temperature/humidity sensors etc).

From the website: This gateway reference design includes ZigBee Home Automation (HA 1.2) certified software stack and tens of APIs that simplify ZigBee integration and application development in a Linux system.

3. What does a block-diagram of the intended final product look like?  In other words, what are all the pieces of this solution?  Where do they come from? How do they fit together?

After installing, look for documentation in the 'Documents' folder. You will find block diagrams in "Z-Stack Linux Gateway User Guide.pdf "

(FYI, you may try googling for this document, if you'd like to scan it before you install anything).

README:

Description:

This is a self extracting archive file, to be run on an x86 Linux machine.
Once executed, following acceptance of the legal disclaimer, it extracts the
following content to the specified directory:

- Documents/Z-Stack Linux Gateway BeagleBone QuickStart Guide.pdf
Quick Start Guide for Installing/Running ZStack Gateway Binaries on
Beaglebone + CC2531 USB Dongle

- Documents/Z-Stack Linux Gateway User Guide.pdf
Installation and User's guide for the TI Gateway Reference Design and
sample application.

- Documents/Z-Stack Linux Gateway User Guide BeagleBone Addendum.pdf
Installation and User's guide addendum for Beaglebone

- Documents/Z-Stack Linux Gateway - API document v1.1.pdf
Z-Stack Gateway Reference Design API document

- Documents/sample_app_ota_readme.txt
Readme for OTA

- Firmware/CC2531-GW-ZNP_{revision}.hex
Firmware image to be programmed into the CC2531 USB dongle ZigBee using a CC
Debugger.

- Firmware/SampleSwitchRouter_OTA.hex
Firmware image for a sample OTA Download client. For more details, see
Documents/sample_app_ota_readme.txt

- Source
Complete source of the sample application. Can be built by running
Source/build_sample_app

NOTE: A pre-compiled sample app binary is included in the package. To rebuild
the sample app, please install the Linaro tool chain from the following link:
software-dl.ti.com/.../index_FDS.html
and modify your "PATH" environment variable to include:
"<LINARO INSTALL LOCATION>/bin".

The included pre-compiled binary was built with the GCC 4.7 2013.03 version
of the Linaro tool chain.

- Proto_files
Protobuf definition files, that define the APIs for the gateway server,
the network manager server and the OTA server.

- Precompiled_arm/z-stack_linux_gateway_arm_binaries_<revision>.tar
Executables pre-compiled for arm-linaro linux, including the Z-Stack Linux
Gateway subsystem servers and the sample application. This file
needs to be copied to the target platform, and extracted there.

Once extracted, the following content is available:

* servers
This directory contains executables of all the Gateway Reference Design
subsystem servers (NPI, Z-Stack Server, NetworkManager, OTA and Gateway),
configuration files and scripts to start the Gateway Reference Design
subsystem and the sample application, as well as misc OTA related files.

* app/main.bin
Executable of the sample application that demonstrates usage of the Gateway
Reference Design APIs.

* protobuf/
Directory that contains protobuf library that is required for the operation
of the Gateway Reference Design subsystem servers, as well as for the sample
application.

* tools/sbl_tool.bin
A serial bootloader tool for reprogramming a new firmware image into the
flash memory of the CC2531 ZigBee SOC.

* tools/gw_soc_fw_version_query.bin
Tool to query the version of CC2531 ZigBee SOC firmware

* tools/bbb_usbreset.bin
Tool to hardware reset CC2531 USB Dongle plugged into Beaglebone Black.

* misc/CC2531-GW-ZNP_{revision}.bin
A boot-loadable CC2531 Zigbee SOC firmware image to demonstrate reprogramming
using the serial bootloader tool. Feature-wise, it has the same ZigBee
Network Processor content as the the hex with the same name.

* misc/ota_sample_images
Directory that contains sample OTA images to be downloaded to a sample OTA
client. For more details, see Documents/sample_app_ota_readme.txt

================================================================================

v1.0.1 Release Notes:

* There are small changes to the Z-Stack Linux Gateway API (relative to the
1.0.0 release). For previous users, if you are not using the provided
pre-compiled protobuf data accessor **-c.h files for the various servers,
you must re-generate them using the included .proto files.

Hi,

The Z-Stack Linux Gateway is an official TI reference design. As such, you can fine many more details at http://www.ti.com/tool/CC2531EM-IOT-HOME-GATEWAY-RD, including software architecture details and block diagram as well as hardware design information.

The standard hardware you can use this software with is a BeagleBone Black together with CC2531 USB ZigBee dongle.

The download file is an "installer" that needs to be run on a Ubuntu PC. IT does not really install things on the PC - it merely displays a license agreement, and after you accept the agreement, the installer extracts a set of files to the directory you specify.

The content extracted by the installer includes everything you need to get the gateway up and running, including full documentation (under the Documents subdirectory). It also includes a tar files that contains pre-compiled executables intended to be run on BeagleBone Black (the tar is available under the Precompiled subdirectory). You will need to copy this tar to the BBB file system, and extract it there. Please see the details in the quick start guide document.

Best regards,

OD

Does TI realize that nearly every computer is 64-bit in this century?  So, because I use 64-bit Debian, I can't build a Zigbee gateway?  Is there a valid reason why this package isn't available as an archive which can simply be decompressed?

Why not just put it in an archive file that can be extracted anywhere???  That's what I did after I went through all the trouble of setting up an Ubuntu 10.04 VM just so I could extract the files.

The same could be said for all the stuff you have packed into self-extracting exe files that require Windoze to access (most notably the Z-Stack downloads).

YK. your providing support at a massive rate!

I use lots of TI wireless chip and Soc so I know how difficult to a newbie to use them. That's why I am here to help you and others.

Hi to All, thanks for the comments.

We were wondering if this would work with a Raspberry Pi, running their Raspian Linux? ( raspberrypi 4.4.26-v7+ )

I would just try it, but my linux knowledge is very limited, so I wanted to see what the experts said first!

Thanks!