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RF Explorer with Chromebook?


Johnny Karlsson

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After researching this, I am pretty sure it's not possible, but just checking if anyone here might have found a way to make this work?

 

Touchstone, Vantage etc. seem to be Mac, Linux and Windows only. Some will work on Google phones and tablets, running certain versions of the OS, but as far as I can tell - RF Explorer running any kind of analyzer with ChromeOS on a Chromebook is not possible...?

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Thanks codyman.

 

I have one that is/has been on that list as “planned” for a couple years, so I’m not very optimistic about it actually happening.

 

I’m still curious if there’s some kind of nerdy hack that could make it work. For example, if there’s a way to install Windows or Linux and go that way.

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Thanks guys.

 

Phew, yeah there's a lot of hoops to jump through there... and then again, even just to make it start up every time... and I'm not even sure if it will work with RF Explorer.

 

It's a Lenovo from a couple years back and was $149. It has 16GB internal storage and 2GB RAM.

Not exactly a super computer, but I was hoping this could be something I could bring on set and not worry about it being kicked around.

Oh well, it can still be a glorified card reader.

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On 12/15/2019 at 2:35 PM, Johnny Karlsson said:

It's a Lenovo from a couple years back and was $149. It has 16GB internal storage and 2GB RAM.

 

Ah, so it is already something you own? Not something you're going to purchase? As chromebooks really can benefit from more RAM, and five seconds on Amazon I can find without even trying a Chromebook with twice as much RAM for less than a hundred bucks:
https://www.amazon.com/Dell-ChromeBook-Celeron-1366x768-Renewed/dp/B0742HZW9B/

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Yes. I'm trying to make use of something I already have.

 

I have now successfully installed Linux on it using the instructions codyman linked above. I also installed the RF Explorer Touch software, which I am able to open, but it will somehow not connect to the RF Explorer. The one line of code to add your user is not working (in terminal). I am probably missing a step somewhere. I will try again when I can find the time. Off to bed right now.

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Thanks, borjam.

 

I guess I need to dive in to Linux and learn a bit more about it, since this is my first encounter with it.

 

This part right here is where I hit a dead end:

 

Add your linux user to the dialup group, otherwise may not be able to open the USB port. For instance this command will do it in Ubuntu/Debian: 

 

sudo adduser <my_user> dialout

 

---- I tried entering the above;

- as is

- replacing the "my_user" part between the brackets (< >) with my actual user name

-  replacing the "my_user" part between the brackets with my actual user name without the brackets

-  replacing the my_user part between the brackets with my actual user name with the path to the home folder included

everything I tried so far results in "no such user" or similar

 

Copy RF Explorer Touch for Linux executable, you can locate it anywhere in your computer.

Connect your RF Explorer spectrum analyzer to the USB port.

 

---- When I connect the RF Explorer to USB, and click "Connect" in the software side menu - it opens a pop-up which actually shows that something is connected to the USB port, but when hitting OK to connect from said pop-up, nothing happens. Then, if clicking "Connect" again, nothing shows up in the pop-up - all greyed out.  In the main window, it still says "Nothing Connected".

 

Run the tool with

mono RFETouchLinux.exe

---- This part has me stumped as well. Doesn't look like a Terminal entry...(?)

 

 

****** LINK TO THE PAGE WHERE THE ABOVE IS REFERENCED FROM: http://j3.rf-explorer.com/40-rfe/article/222

 

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A couple things:

- Did you install the Mono package? Just checking…

- The adduser command should contain your user name without brackets. Assuming you installed Ubuntu, when you're in the terminal your prompt should be "username@ubuntu:~$" or something close. Make sure you enter the username in the adduser command exactly as it appears in your terminal prompt.

- "mono RFETouchLinux.exe" is a terminal command. Mono is a framework to let Linux run applications written for Microsoft .NET; the command is telling Mono to run RFETouchLinux.exe.

 

Sorry if this is treading ground you've already covered.

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2 hours ago, Allen Rowand said:

A couple things:

- Did you install the Mono package? Just checking…

- The adduser command should contain your user name without brackets. Assuming you installed Ubuntu, when you're in the terminal your prompt should be "username@ubuntu:~$" or something close. Make sure you enter the username in the adduser command exactly as it appears in your terminal prompt.

- "mono RFETouchLinux.exe" is a terminal command. Mono is a framework to let Linux run applications written for Microsoft .NET; the command is telling Mono to run RFETouchLinux.exe.

 

Sorry if this is treading ground you've already covered.

 

Thank you, Allen.

- Yes on mono package.

- username@localhost:~$ is what I can see. And tried this now.

- I figured out why "mono RFETouchLinux.exe" didn't work - newer version of the app had additional numbers etc. in the file name. But this is essentially the same as double clicking directly on the app to launch it, if I understand correctly...?

 

After fiddling around again, still cannot get it to connect to the RF Explorer.

 

Please, no need to say sorry - I am fumbling in the dark here, so it might be something very basic that I'm missing. I really do appreciate the help.

 

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I am not a Linux user (I have been using Unix since the late 80's though) and using "adduser" in that way looks odd to me.

 

try this

 

fgrep dialout /etc/group

 

to check if your user has actually been added to the proper group. Otherwise the program won't have permission to open the device.

 

A crude but easy to grasp way to find wether the RF Explorer is being detected and it's really available to the dialout group is 

 

cd /dev

ls -l | fgrep dialout 

 

At least some device names starting by "tty" should appear. Post the output here.

 

There is always a lot of uncertainty in Linux as developers suddenly decide to make breaking changes between versions. So, we need to know wether there is a valid driver present for the device (it appears as an old fashioned serial port), which permissions it has (the group name might be "dialup" instead of "dialout" and wether the device has really been assigned the proper permissions.

 

 

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13 hours ago, borjam said:

try this

 

fgrep dialout /etc/group


this returned:

dialout:x:20:

 

13 hours ago, borjam said:

 

A crude but easy to grasp way to find wether the RF Explorer is being detected and it's really available to the dialout group is 

 

cd /dev

ls -l | fgrep dialout 

 

At least some device names starting by "tty" should appear. Post the output here.

 

 

 

This only returns my username with a “/“ before the $ sign in place of the “~”

(xenial)username@localhost:/$

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6 hours ago, Johnny Karlsson said:

dialout:x:20:

 

So you are not a member of the dialout group. Not surprising, I found the syntax for that "adduser" command rather odd.

 

What Linux distribution exactly have you installed? I will search for the relevant spell. As a worst case solution you can edit the group file yourself (it's a plain text file) and add your account.

 

 

Quote

 

This only returns my username with a “/“ before the $ sign in place of the “~”

(xenial)username@localhost:/$

 

I forgot. Was the RF Explorer connected to the computer? The /dev directory contains device files. In order to access a device a file is created there. And for plug and play devices (such as USB ones) the file only exists when it's connected. 

 

So, if the RF Explorer was connected either the device was owned by a different group or it wasn't recognized in the first place.

 

If it was connected, check the "tty" devices present in the /dev/directory

 

ls -l /dev/tty*

 

Check for /dev/ttyUSB to see if it exists. I think that's the correct name for the serial line.

 

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

 

(the USB has an asterisk at the end, maybe it's too small with this font)

 

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Yes, RF Explorer was connected.

 

I followed these steps to install Linux:

https://www.lifewire.com/install-linux-on-chromebook-4125253

 

8 hours ago, borjam said:

Check for /dev/ttyUSB to see if it exists. I think that's the correct name for the serial line.

 

ls -l /dev/ttyUSB*

 

(the USB has an asterisk at the end, maybe it's too small with this font)

 

 

this returned:

 

crw---- 1 root serial 188, 0 Dec 19 09:07 /dev/ttyUSB0

 

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Good. So you need to embrace serialism. Listening to good music never hurts,

 

Or become a member of the “serial” group instead of “dialout”.

 

I imagine the permissions were c r w - r w - - - - ?

(that means the owner —root—and the owner group —serial— have read and write access to it)

 

While I check which is the right command you can try something simple:

 

sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyUSB0

 

if will ask for your password. If the system doesn’t complain you will have full access to the serial port as a regular user.

 

So, if you launch the RF Explorer software it should work. 

 

Unfortunately these permissions will be gone once you reboot the system or unplug the RF Explorer. I’ll check how to add you to the serial group to make it permanent. (Linux distributions have lots of silly changes between versions).

 

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I'm glad it worked.

 

Regarding the vanishing permissions, the advantage of operating systems with a Unix heritage is that very few paranormal phenomena occur, if any! So yes, it was trivial to predict that one :)

 

Now, I'll check later what spell you need to make that change permanent. I am not familiar at all with Ubuntu, so I have to dig a bit. 

 

It will involve editing a configuration file.  Do you feel comfortable doing that? It's a simple task but Unix text editors can be a bit daunting to inexperienced users!

 

And no problem at all for the technical support thing. I'm happy to contribute to this forum. Besides, I guess it will be useful for other users. Turning an old, cheap computer into a large spectrum analyzer screen is great ;)

 

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To go back to the original problem of "no such user". Try entering in the terminal "sudo adduser $USER dialout" without the quotes. The $USER bit should autopopulate your current username.

 

Edit:

23 hours ago, Johnny Karlsson said:

this returned:

 

crw---- 1 root serial 188, 0 Dec 19 09:07 /dev/ttyUSB0

 

 

Actually seeing this part, looks like maybe the group is called serial? You could also try "sudo adduser $USER serial" to see if that works. Make sure you log out and back in or reboot before proceeding.

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4 hours ago, Patrick Farrell said:

To go back to the original problem of "no such user". Try entering in the terminal "sudo adduser $USER dialout" without the quotes. The $USER bit should autopopulate your current username.

 

Edit:

 

Actually seeing this part, looks like maybe the group is called serial? You could also try "sudo adduser $USER serial" to see if that works. Make sure you log out and back in or reboot before proceeding.

 

Thanks, Patrick. 

"sudo adduser $USER dialout" did autopopulate with my user name. Yeah!

 

"sudo adduser $USER serial" followed by logging out and back in resulted in RF Explorer connecting automagically when launched.

 

Yeah!!! Success. BIG Thank all of you guys!!

 

 

 

 

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Looking at that guide, I'm questioning whether it installs a non-standard version of linux. Did you follow the directions to enter a shell and startxfce4 first before logging in?

Depending on what version of Ubuntu is installed, you may be able to log in as root. Failing that, I'd just wipe and reinstall linux, taking care to note what username is entered at the prompt when installing.

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