Sigrok PulseView Questions - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: sswcharlie1
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 12:26:25 am
content: HiWould like top use Sigrok/Pulseview on Linux Mint 20.3 Cinammon 64 bitNeed some advice first on installation:Do I need to download both softwares?Which is the recommended version to use.Once I have installed I will need assistance to setup for a slightly different project. I want to feed into the software a data stream as per outlined in this link.Just would like to replicate what is in the document.Does the software have settings to allow a read of this type of data stream?ThankyouCharles Harris

author: woofy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 04:02:55 pm
content: Installation is as simple as:sudo apt install pulseviewI have only ever used pulseview with a cheap 8 channel logic analyser, so no experience with streams. I'm not at all sure it will process streams in real time. It can capture a stream and then display the results or you can give it a file to display.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 05:59:03 pm
content: Quote from: sswcharlie1 on April 22, 2023, 12:26:25 amI happen to run the same right now.Sigrok is the project name. The main application the project maintains is Pulseview. Other software the project provides includes sigrok-cli (a command-line interface, various libraries, and the FX2LAFW firmware used for the Cypress FX2 -based logic analyzers.Quote from: sswcharlie1 on April 22, 2023, 12:26:25 amNo, you don't need to "download" anything (using your browser).Version 0.4.1 is included in the Mint software repositories for 20.3. Just fire up your preferred software manager, and find and select "Pulseview". The command-line command woofy mentioned,sudo apt install pulseviewdoes the exact same task, just using the command-line interface. (They are compatible, too: there is no difference in the result doing it one way or another, and both ways are fully aware of installations and removals/purges done using the other.)After installing, Pulseview will appear in your Mint menu, under Programming.You'll want to read theGetting Startedpage at the Sigrok project, and theGetting started with a logic analyzerpage. There is a link to Sparkfun's tutorial, and a couple of videos on using Pulseview, too.I use Pulseview with a very cheap "24 MHz logic analyzer" off eBay, currently sold for $8 or so (look for LHT00SU1; seeSigrok project documentation on these), with wire hook test clips. These typically use the Cypress FX2 chip, and are a direct implementation of the logic analyzer appnote/example provided, so using them with Sigrok's own FX2LAWF firmware, you're not violating anyones copyright or licensing or anything like that; it's above the board.In Mint (and all Debian derivatives),sigrokpackage is a metapackage that pulls in not only Pulseview, but (almost all) the other Sigrok-provided packages also. A convenience.Quote from: sswcharlie1 on April 22, 2023, 12:26:25 amYou forgot the link.In any case, you'll probably want to usesigrok-cli(the command-line interface for capturing data like Pulseview does), or the software will need the key libraries (libsigrok4,sigrok-firmware-fx2lawf,libsigrokdecode4, and possiblylibsigrokcxx4; plus thelibsigrok-dev,libsigrokdecode-dev, and possiblylibsigrokcxx4-devif you need to compile the software yourself). These are all installed just like Pulseview, only the name differs. (It also applies to other software, too. Repositories areuseful.)

author: wasedadoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 06:54:43 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 22, 2023, 05:59:03 pmThe LHT00SU1 is from about £30 from China on ebay UK. Version without the analogue input is available from around £12. Use "24MHz 8 Channel USB Logic Analyzer" for searching.https://sigrok.org/wiki/ARMFLY_Mini-Logic,https://sigrok.org/wiki/AZDelivery_Logic_Analyzerand others shown athttps://sigrok.org/wiki/Supported_hardware#Logic_analyzers

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 07:52:57 pm
content: Quote from: wasedadoc on April 22, 2023, 06:54:43 pmThe difference between the more expensive and the cheapest of these is that the more expensive ones have one (or two) analog channels at a very low sample rate, something like 16 MHz typical (so only for analog signals up to a megahertz or two in practice). Both do use Cypress FX2 chips (and fx2lafw firmware in sigrok project code, including pulseview), the ones with analog channel/s also have an ADC chip. (Depending on the exact chip, FX2 can support up to 16 digital channels, but usually only 8 are wired for logic probing.)(I personally would use a dedicated device for analog sampling, not an FX2 one with analog input support.)On ebay.com, the sellers use the bait-and-switch tactic that lists multiple different items in the same ad, and you need to pick the correct item ("24MHz 8 Channel USB Logic Analyzer" for example) to see the actual price. When sorting by price, the item is listed based on the lowest price for each ad, which is not the price for the logic analyzer but usually a cheap probe or some such.For example, on 2023-04-23 at ebay.com,Modulefans'24MHz logic analyzer is USD 7.53 + shipping;ai_smart'sUKP 6.89 + shipping;modul_technic'sandsense_core's6.60 EUR + shipping.It does take a bit of work to find the cheap ones without being bamboozled by crafty eBay sellers.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 08:32:36 pm
content: I have a DSLogic Plus (it's the black thing in the banner):https://www.dreamsourcelab.com/Has a Spartan6 FPGA inside and some local RAM (256 MB). The sample rate can go up to 400MHz (when acquiring only 4 channels, 100MHz max for all 16 channels in buffered mode), and came with 50 ohms shielded cable for probes. Has hardware adjustable threshold voltage. Has some hardware triggering, too.The company has had a constant presence for many years now, so a trusted manufacturer. The box is black anodized, machined billet Aluminium, very nicely built.Their software looks better than PulseView. It's called DSView, with installers for all major OSs. DSview is a customized PulseView+Sigrok. The hardware can make local compress, too, which is useful to capture very short pulses that are far away in time. Has an adapter for an external ADC, to turn it into a mixed signal oscilloscope, but I don't have that adapter.Mine has streaming, too, max 100MHz sampling on 4 channels (or 20MHz max for 16 channels), never tried it. From what I recall, DSview or PulseView can not display continuous streams as a rolling display, so even if it captures the stream continuously, the display refresh is made in consecutive "pages".

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 22, 2023, 09:15:18 pm
content: Forgot to add, one of the Sigrok devs started to post videos at some point, might ease configuring a new device:https://www.youtube.com/@OpenTechLab/videos

author: wasedadoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2023, 10:23:16 am
content: If the logic levels are 3.3 Volts a $4 Raspberry Pico can be programmed as a 16 channel 100MHz grabber for Pulseview. However a Pico has only 200 kbytes of RAM to buffer the data before passing to Pulseview. That may or may not be a limitation depending on the specific use case.https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=350300

author: Perkele
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 23, 2023, 09:13:51 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on April 22, 2023, 05:59:03 pm

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 25, 2023, 08:05:22 pm
content: Quote from: Perkele on April 23, 2023, 09:13:51 pmTrue. The other similar frontend I did not mention is sigrok-meter, for multimeters and dataloggers (only – SmuView supports much more devices).Neither sigrok-meter nor SmuView is included in Linux Mint 20.3 repositories.sigrok-meterdevelopers say it is not suitable for everyday use, and recommend usingSmuViewinstead. (SmuView development repositories are atgithub.com/knarfS/smuview.)I personally do not have any devices thatSmuView supports, so I don't have SmuView installed, and do not know of a repository providing the latest version as a native.debpackage compatible with Mint 20.3, but the64-bit AppImage for Linuxshould work just fine.(You download the AppImage, and make it executable, for example using command 'chmod ug+rx SmuView-0.0.5-x86_64.AppImage' in the directory you downloaded it into; then you simply run (by double-clicking) it.)Since I also run Mint 20.3 on x86-64, I can, if there is real need (like running it on work machines, where IT admin would prefer a standard installation instead of an AppImage for maintenance reasons), build and show how to rebuild SmuView as a normal.debpackage for Mint 20.3.