So I am slogging through the Windows Toolchain Install instructions. I get as far as:
“Download dfu-util. Use the most recent version.
Extract the folder and move it to a permanent location such as \User\Documents”
Now I have this file downloaded:
dfu-util-0.10-binaries.tar.xz
How do I extract it?? Hey, Windows. Remember?
WTF do you guys expect non-unix, non-linux, non-CS-geeks to do on our silly Windows PCs?
Hey, sorry to hear you’re having trouble!
I’ve been using winrar to extract dfu-util on my PC. It complains a little, but you can just ignore that and move forward with the process! Let me know if that works alright for you.
Google the problem – maybe using a search phrase like windows extract tar.gz – and then read the results, and go get 7zip. I guess?
I mean. Please actually try? If you can’t solve problems like “I don’t know what to do with this file”, you should expect to run into some really difficult issues when building audio hardware.
Thanks, sharps. I did exactly that, and did get it extracted, all by myself. So I am really trying - so far about eight hours into the process of getting the development environment installed. My point is that it is absurdly complicated for non-programmer types to learn.
BTW, I have been building hardware as a EE for 40 years, and music effects hardware for 10 years, including commercial products. So for me, building audio hardware is not difficult at all.
So you see it is all a matter of perspective. E-S has done a masterful job of developing a very powerful audio engine and making it accessible to programmers who are not EE’s. They have not done such a good job making the development tools for that engine accessible to folks who are not CS’s.
Yes, some of this is just venting my frustration, but I also am also trying to give honest feedback to E-S to help them improve their offerings and build their business. They could have an army of developers and DIYers using and evangelizing the Daisy platform if the tools where as user-friendly as the hardware.
I will quit my bitching and, I mean, actually try.
Sorry, I was maybe a bit harsh. I dunno. I’m glad you’ve figured out how to do it.
I think my point, minus the snark, was that the step you were stuck on really, really isn’t the kind of thing you need a compsci degree for. It’s more generally basic computing knowledge. If you haven’t been using computers much, and got your education done 40+ years ago, it’s probably easy to assume that things are really difficult programming/compsci probems when they’re not – or vice versa for those writing the instructions, not making clear what’s expected background knowledge vs. new/difficult things to learn. I maybe made the same error they did and assumed that if you’re coming at daisy with intent to build things, you probably have that computing background knowledge. For context, I’m someone who has ~10 years experience with software development, but I’m new to hardware and electronics.
If you’ve done 40 years doing audio hardware, then yeah, you can easily learn this. Good luck with getting into firmware/software development.
The instructions probably could be clearer. (I, uh, didn’t use them, what with running linux, and wanting to do a more complicated (and unsupported) setup with rust/cargo instead…)