This directory contains a native driver for FLI USB devices that
should work with any Linux kernel 2.6 and higher. The driver creates a
character special file /dev/fliusbi<i>, where i=0,1,2... is the device
number, when a recognized FLI USB device is attached. The character
special file provides two ways to communicate with FLI USB devices;
through read()/write() system calls or by using ioctl().
This project builds on the vendor supplied release version 1.5 of fliusb from https://flicamera.com/support/support.php
This driver has been modified by the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) to make it work with newer Linux kernel versions with more modern features.
The modifications have fixed several bugs, the most prominent of which is that the driver no longer crashes if the camera is unplugged/power cycled while in use.
Compile-time options which were not enabled by default have been removed to keep the code simple and easy to understand.
Please note that this source code repository is not associated with FLI.
Use the make command to compile the driver. This will create the
kernel module fliusb.ko that can then be loaded using the insmod
command.
Compile-time options are controlled by defining the following preprocessor macros. Each option is briefly described below.
DEBUG This option makes the driver more verbose and causes
it to print a basic description of what it's doing as
various operations are performed. This has a negative
impact on performance but might be useful for
debugging purposes.
buffersize The default size of the driver buffer (per FLI USB
device). This also acts as the threshold for when
scatter-gather reads are done, if enabled.
timeout The default timeout, in milliseconds, for read() and
write() system calls.
The supported ioctl() commands are defined in fliusb_ioctl.h.
Parameters for each command are passed by pointer using the third
argument to the ioctl() system call. See fliusb_ioctl.h for the
pointer type each command expects. The commands listed below are
recognized.
FLIUSB_GETRDEPADDR Get the current USB endpoint address
used when a read() is performed.
FLIUSB_SETRDEPADDR Set the USB endpoint address used when
a read() is performed.
FLIUSB_GETWREPADDR Get the current USB endpoint address
used when a write() is performed.
FLIUSB_SETWREPADDR Set the USB endpoint address used when
a write() is performed.
FLIUSB_GETBUFFERSIZE Get the current buffer size.
FLIUSB_SETBUFFERSIZE Set the buffer size.
FLIUSB_GETTIMEOUT Get the current timeout, in milliseconds.
FLIUSB_SETTIMEOUT Set the current timeout, in milliseconds.
FLIUSB_BULKREAD Perform a bulk read.
FLIUSB_BULKWRITE Perform a bulk write.
FLIUSB_GET_DEVICE_DESCRIPTOR Get the USB device descriptor.
Ensure you have the necessary rpmtools installed. For example on a rocky 9 machine
sudo dnf install rpm-build rpmdevtools
Set up the rpm build environment (if it does not already exist).
rpmdev-setuptree
Make a temporary copy of this source directory called fliusb-{version-number} then create a tarball of that directory in the rpmbuild/SOURCES directory, for example:
tar -czvf ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/fliusb-2.2.tar.gz fliusb-2.2/
Copy the spec file into ~/rpmbuild/SPECS
cp fliusb.spec ~/rpmbuild/SPECS
Build the rpm
rpmbuild -ba ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/appname.spec
The built rpm can be found in ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch for example
~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/fliusb-2.2-lcogt.noarch.rpm
This can be installed and the kernel module built on the target machine.