README: Document new libserialport requirement.

[libsigrok.git] / README

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README
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The sigrok project aims at creating a portable, cross-platform,
Free/Libre/Open-Source signal analysis software suite that supports various
device types (such as logic analyzers, oscilloscopes, multimeters, and more).

libsigrok is a shared library written in C which provides the basic API
for talking to hardware and reading/writing the acquired data into various
input/output file formats.


Status
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libsigrok is in a usable state and has had official tarball releases.

While the API can change from release to release, this will always be
properly documented and reflected in the package version number and
in the shared library / libtool / .so-file version numbers.

However, there are _NO_ guarantees at all for stable APIs in git snapshots!
Distro packagers should only use released tarballs (no git snapshots).


Requirements
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 - git
 - gcc (>= 4.0)
 - make
 - autoconf >= 2.63
 - automake >= 1.11
 - libtool
 - pkg-config >= 0.22
 - libglib >= 2.32.0
 - libzip >= 0.10
 - libserialport >= 0.1 (optional, used by some drivers)
 - libusb-1.0 >= 1.0.9 (optional, used by some drivers)
 - libftdi >= 0.16 (optional, used by some drivers)
 - libudev >= 151 (optional, used by some drivers)
 - libasound / alsa-lib >= 1.0 (optional, only used by the alsa driver)
 - check >= 0.9.4 (optional, only needed to run unit tests)


Building and installing
-----------------------

In order to get the libsigrok source code and build it, run:

 $ git clone git://sigrok.org/libsigrok
 $ cd libsigrok
 $ ./autogen.sh
 $ ./configure
 $ make

For installing libsigrok:

 $ make install

See INSTALL or the following wiki page for more (OS-specific) instructions:

 http://sigrok.org/wiki/Building


Device-specific issues
----------------------

Please check README.devices for some notes and hints about device- or
driver-specific issues to be aware of.


Firmware
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Some devices supported by libsigrok need a firmware to be uploaded before the
device can be used. See README.devices for details.


Copyright and license
---------------------

libsigrok is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License
(GPL), version 3 or later.

While some individual source code files are licensed under the GPLv2+, and
some files are licensed under the GPLv3+, this doesn't change the fact that
the library as a whole is licensed under the terms of the GPLv3+.

Please see the individual source files for the full list of copyright holders.


Mailing lists
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There are two mailing lists for sigrok/libsigrok:

 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sigrok-devel
 https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sigrok-commits


IRC
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You can find the sigrok developers in the #sigrok IRC channel on Freenode.


Website
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 http://sigrok.org/wiki/Libsigrok