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Version 1.9 May 2019

FireBird Quickstart Guide – Linux

1)a) Power
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Fitting the Card
off and open up the computer (taking the usual anti-static precautions).
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QUICKSTART GUIDE
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Please note: The cards are keyed so that they can only be fitted into a slot in which
they will work. DO NOT modify the FireBird card or the motherboard in an attempt to
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override the keying as this could result in serious damage.
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b) Insert the FireBird card into a spare PCI Express slot.

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c) Close and power on the computer.
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2) Supported Environments
 All 64 bit Intel Linux distributions with kernel version 2.6.35 and above and GLIBC
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2.15 and above. Please contact Active Silicon if you require support for earlier
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kernels and GLIBC variants.
 NVIDIA Jetson TX2.
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3) Software Installation
To install the Debian package, run the following terminal command (where X.Y.Z
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relates to the installer version):
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x86: sudo dpkg --install as-fbd-linux-X.Y.Z-amd64.deb
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Jetson: sudo dpkg --install as-fbd-linux-X.Y.Z-arm64.deb
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To install the RPM package, run the following terminal command (where X.Y.Z relates
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to the installer version):
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x86: sudo rpm –ivh as-fbd-linux-X.Y.Z-x86_64.rpm

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When complete reboot the system.
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The driver is built when the installer package is run. The driver can be rebuilt from the
included source files when required.
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4) NVIDIA RDMA Support
By default, the driver is built without support for RDMA. The driver must be re-built with
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environment variable NVIDIA_SRC_DIR set to the location of the NVIDIA SDK to support
RDMA.
a) Install the CUDA SDK.
b) Find the CUDA installation directory:
find /usr/src -name nv-p2p.h -print

Example output:
/usr/src/kernel-modules/nvidia-418.67-default/nvidia/nv-p2p.h
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c) Re-build the driver:

cd /usr/local/activesilicon/source/driver/mdadrv/linux
make uninstall clean
make NVIDIA_SRC_DIR=<NVIDIA source directory> build install

Example:
make NVIDIA_SRC_DIR=/usr/src/kernel-modules/nvidia-418.67-default build
install

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 AS-FBD-QS-GUIDE-LINUX
Version 1.9 May 2019

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5) Updating the FireBird Firmware
It is recommended to always update the firmware on FireBird boards to match that in
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the current driver set.
QUICKSTART GUIDE
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To do this run the fbdprog console application from the package and follow the
instructions:
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 /usr/local/activesilicon/bin64/fbdprog
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6) Testing the Device Driver
Build and run the phx_info console application from ActiveSDK:
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/usr/local/activesilicon/source/examples/phx_info
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This will open the FireBird hardware, then print to the screen diagnostic and version
information about the card and software installed.When complete reboot the system.
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7) ActiveSDK Examples
Example applications are installed with the FireBird package and located in the
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directory /usr/local/activesilicon/source/examples.
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Each example is provided with a makefile and is ready to build. Examples typically
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require a PCF file custom to the camera to run an acquisition. The PCF files are
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located in the directory /usr/local/activesilicon/pcf.
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Please refer to the FireBird_ActiveSDK_Manual_Linux.pdf for further details.
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8) Where to Go Next
For developers, refer to the on-line (PDF) manuals located in
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/usr/local/activesilicon/docs in conjunction with the source code to the example
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programs provided with ActiveSDK.
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The main documents are FireBird_System_Manual.pdf which describes FireBird’s
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system-level functions, FireBird_Hardware_Manual.pdf which outlines the hardware
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features of FireBird boards, and PHX_API_Reference_Manual.pdf which describes the
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API used to control FireBird.
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9) Uninstallation
To uninstall the debian package, run the following terminal command as root:
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 sudo dpkg –r as-fbd-linux
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To uninstall the rpm package, run the following terminal command as root:
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sudo rpm –e as-fbd-linux
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SUPPORT
Europe & ROW North America
Tel: +44 (0) 1753 650600 +1 410-696-7642
Email: techsupport@activesilicon.com techsupport@activesilicon.com
Web: www.activesilicon.com www.activesilicon.com

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