Loading programs onto Raspi

Hi,

I'm wondering what it will take to add existing programs that run on the Linux distro to Raspi. Has anyone done this and what are the steps to make it happen? I'd be inclined that this won't be as easy as working with RPIs and such, but if anyone has any suggestions, already done this, or has links to examples that they can include in a reply, I'd be highly interested. Ultimately I'd like to install an app that performs demodulation from an IQ stream that's attached to the USB port and have it auto-launch when Raspi has been booted.

Also, is it possible to have the ID and pass be auto-loaded so when power is applied to Raspi it just boots to the environment and then auto-loads the app? Let me know that, too.

Thanks for the initial information...!

Marty

e14 Contributor over 14 years ago

Marty,
I think this thread may be helpful:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/general-discussion/how-do-you-program-a-raspberry-pi
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morgaine over 14 years ago
I can't forsee any technical problems doing what you want, Marty. After all, it's a full Linux distro.

If your board is dedicated to the task you describe then it's a simple matter of installing your program to run as a service on startup, no entering of passwords required. It's very easy to add your own services under Linux, although the details vary depending on which distro you use.

Traditionally you add a little script in the /etc/init.d directory, let's call it "foo", which then gets started as a service with "/etc/init.d/foo start" and stopped with "/etc/init.d/foo stop". Use one of the short scripts that you'll find there as a basis, and modify it to call your special application when given the "start" argument, and terminate it on "stop".

Once it works properly for "start" and "stop", then all you need to do is tell your system that "foo" (or whatever you've called it) is a system service to be started on bootup. Unfortunately doing this varies a lot between distros so YMMV. Some examples:

Fedora:    systemctl enable foo.service - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Systemd
Gentoo:    rc-update add foo default        - http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=4
Debian:    update-rc.d foo defaults          - http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/28
Ubuntu:    chkconfig foo on                       - http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/karmic/man8/chkconfig.8.html

And so on ... Welcome to the "NIH" anarchy of Linux services configuration.

Morgaine.
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