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Software for PiFace

e14 Contributor
e14 Contributor over 12 years ago

I have just bought a PiFace board but after two days of trying I cannot obtain any software to run it. I have tried https:// github.com and it returns "no such file or directory. I've tried PiFace Digital, "Getting Started with PiFace Digital in less than ten minutes", on the page starting "you can always enable the SPi driver .................. The software appears to have downloaded and installed but the PiFace Emulator doesn't work. (I used the command piface/scripts/piface_emulator) and it returned "no such file or directory".

Can someone spot where I'm going wrong please?

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago

    Documentation is here: http://piface.github.io/pifacedigitalio/

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Dear Tom,

    I have updated Raspbian and installed pifacedigitalio following your

    advice. Unfortunately blink.py failed with the report "no such file or

    directory".

    It seems that all along I've been having that report so I still need help

    I'm afraid.

    My home/pi directory at present contains the folders:

    indiecity,

    Squeak

    RPi.GPIO

    RPi.GPIO .0.5.3a

    piface

    Desktop

    Documents

    scratch

    Python Games

    python3_pifacecommon_4,0,0-1_all(1).deb

    ocr_pi.png

    data.tar.gz

    install_scratch_GPIO.sh

    install.txt

    debian-binary

    contro.tar.gz

    pure13.0.2.55 8en_gb.exe

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Can you try the following commands and show me the output, please?

     

        $ aptitude show python3-pifacedigitalio

        $ ls -l /usr/share/doc/ | grep piface

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Dear Tom,

    Here is the listing for you:

     

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $ aptitude show python3-pifacedigitalio

    Package: python3-pifacedigitalio

    State: installed

    Automatically installed: no

    Version: 2.1.0-1

    Priority: optional

    Section: python

    Maintainer: Thomas Preston <thomas.preston@openlx.org.uk>

    Architecture: all

    Uncompressed Size: 528 k

    Depends: python3 (>= 3.2.3-3~), python3-pifacecommon (>= 3.0.0),

             python3-pifacecommon (< 4.0.0)

    Description: The PiFace Digital I/O module.

    Python 3 module for interacting with PiFace Digital. Documentation:

    http://piface.github.io/pifacedigitalio/

     

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $ is -l /usr/share/doc/ | grep piface

    bash: is: command not found

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ls -l/usr/share/doc/ | grep piface

    ls: invalid option -- '/'

    Try `ls --help' for more information.

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $

     

     

     

    I was confused by the typeface using your second line. Sorry.

     

    Chris.

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Dear Tom,

    I've done all the updating and upgrading of Raspian as per examples on

    https://github.com/piface/pifacedigitalio. The outcome of the Blink test

    was :

     

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $  python3

    /usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/blink.py

     

    Traceback (most recent call last):

     

      File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pifacecommon/spi.py", line 40, in

    open_fd

     

        self.fd = posix.open(spi_device, posix.O_RDWR)

     

    OSError: No such file or directory: '/dev/spidev0.0'

     

     

    During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

     

     

    Traceback (most recent call last):

     

      File "/usr/share/doc/python3-pifacedigitalio/examples/blink.py", line 9,

    in

     

        pifacedigital = pifacedigitalio.PiFaceDigital()

     

      File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pifacedigitalio/core.py", line 45,

    in __init__

     

        super(PiFaceDigital, self).__init__(hardware_addr, bus, chip_select)

     

      File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pifacecommon/mcp23s17.py", line 91,

    in __init__

     

        super(MCP23S17, self).__init__(bus, chip_select)

     

      File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pifacecommon/spi.py", line 32, in

    __init__

     

        self.open_fd(spi_device)

     

      File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pifacecommon/spi.py", line 44, in

    open_fd

     

        % (spi_device, SPI_HELP_LINK)

     

    pifacecommon.spi.SPIInitError: I can't see /dev/spidev0.0. Have you enabled

    the SPI module? (

    http://piface.github.io/pifacecommon/installation.html#enable-the-spi-module

    )

     

    pi@raspberrypi ~ $

     

     

    I hope this is useful to you. I saw no activity on the PiFace board. Is it

    my error perhaps? Can you offer any other ideas please?

     

    Chris Hart

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  • mconners
    0 mconners over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    One thing immediately jumps out at me

    pifacecommon.spi.SPIInitError: I can't see /dev/spidev0.0. Have you enabled

    the SPI module?

     

    Have you? I would suggest following the link and see where that takes you.

     

    The error seems to be that the driver for the SPI is not loaded, therefore the OS doesn't know about /dev/spidev0.0

     

    On Unix (and by extension Linux) systems most of the IO is handled as if the device were a file, so when a device driver is loaded the OS will create a "file" in the /dev/ directory corresponding to the device. In this case the SPI device.

     

    If that file is not found, it probably means that the driver for the file isn't loaded, or you don't have permission to access it.

     

    I haven't had the opportunity to play with the PiFace yet, but I would suspect that your error has something to do with the module not being enabled.

     

    I briefly visited this page

    Installation — PiFace Common 4.0.0 documentation 

    which is the same as the link above and it seems to have the information you need.

     

    Good Luck,

    Mike

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Dear Tom,

    I have got the PiFace to respond by having gone into Config Advanced and

    setting SPI to "Yes" following advice at:

    http://piface.github.io/pifacecommon/installation.html#enable-the-spi-module

    I'm looking forward to learning how to set up and run some interesting

    projects.

    Kind regards,

    Chris. Hart.

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  • e14 Contributor
    0 e14 Contributor over 12 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

    Dear Tom,

    I have got the PiFace to respond by having gone into Config Advanced and

    setting SPI to "Yes" following advice at:

    http://piface.github.io/pifacecommon/installation.html#enable-the-spi-module

    I'm looking forward to learning how to set up and run some interesting

    projects.

    Kind regards,

    Chris. Hart.

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