Developing For The Netduino On Osx

on IoT

I was a fan of Netduino, and then I consolidated my dev machines down to a single MacBook Pro. I decided to write this blog on my experience getting a development environment working.

  1. CrossOver
    • Will attempt this at some stage. CrossOver is not free, and since education is a big field for IoT, I wanted to see if I could do this without using paid software.
  2. Wine
    • This looked promising at first, but using USB ports seemed like it could be an issue.
  3. VirtualBox
    • Success!

1. Installing Virtual Box

Install from here: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads => OSX Hosts.

Run the installer and follow the instructions/steps.

2. Get Windows

2.1 Download a legit, free, copy

Microsoft provides free Windows VMs for the purpose of testing Microsoft Edge. Please read the license included with each VM to ensure that it complies with your intended usage.

Navigate to https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ => Select any Windows version and make sure to select the VirtualBox download (.ovf extension).

They expire after 90 days which means that the will not start-up.

To work around this, it is recommended to make a snapshot once you are set up.

If you have a Windows license, use a full version instead :).

2.2 Install Windows

Double click the .ovf file to import the Virtual Machine into VirtualBox.

Once the VM has imported and Windows has started successfully, take a snapshot. This gives you something to roll back to, should there be an issue in the later steps.

3. Enable USB in VirtualBox

Enable USB access in VirtualBox. VirtualBox allows you to add filters to allow individual devices. Don’t forget to to restart the VM between adding/changing these!

Right Click VM -> Settings -> Ports -> USB -> Enable USB 1.1 Controller

4. Install Visual Studio Express 2013 and Tools

For this section I followed the ‘Development Environment’ steps from http://www.netduino.com/downloads/.

Known Issues:

.NET MF plug-in for VS2013 downloads as a .zip file

This seems to be an issue with some of the ‘smarts’ in Windows 10. Rename the netmfvs2013.zip file to a .vsix file and run. It should automatically be opened by Visual Studio.

Build Error: 0x80131700 File = MMP.

On a fresh install, it is common to only have .Net 4.0 installed. However the .Net MicroFramework uses part of the .NET 2.0 CLR.

This can be fixed by installed .NET 3.5 SP1 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=ab99342f-5d1a-413d-8319-81da479ab0d7&displaylang=en).

More details here http://forums.netduino.com/index.php?/topic/913-build-error-0x80131700/.

5. Set up workspace

Open Visual Studio Express 2013. You should be able to create a new project using a .Net Micro Framework Template.

Under File, go New Project -> Installed -> Templates -> Visual C# -> Micro Framework and select Netduino Application (Universal).

6. Deploy your first program

6.1 Write your first Program

Navigate to program.cs.

Within main, paste the following code (or write your own :))

``` OutputPort led = new OutputPort(Pins.ONBOARD_LED, false);

while (true)
{
    Thread.Sleep(1000);

    led.Write(!led.Read());
}   ```

6.2 Configure the Project

Double click Properties in the Solution Explorer.

Under Application, ensure that the Target Framework is set to .NET Micro Framework 4.3

Under .NET Micro Framework, ensure that Transport is set to USB and Device is set to your Netduino.

Now hit deploy, and your code should load on to the device and begin running immediately.

Known Issues:

DebugPort.GetDeviceProcess() called with no argument

The first deploy has been known to fail. If the error message DebugPort.GetDeviceProcess() called with no argument appears, deploy to the Emulator, then switch back to USB and deploy again. See here for more details:

The Emulator can be found under .NET Micro Framework -> Transport -> Emulator, in the Project Properties.

7. Take a snapshot!!

You are now all set up ;). Please remember to take a snapshot if you are using one of Microsoft’s free VMs, so that you restore to a working state after the 6 months is up :).

8. Rinse and Repeat… or not.

If you are a school/library and need to get this working for a whole classroom, at this point you can export the VirtualBox image and copy it around the classroom. Much easier than following these steps again :).

Appendix: Updating the Netduino firmware

My instructions above are using the latest tools / firmware (as of writing this).

My Netduino had been flashed with the .NetMF 4.2.0 firmware, so I had to upgrade to 4.3.1 once I had the VirtualBox VM running. Here are a few tips on upgrading the firmware.

This video shows the process I went through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3YndaRcFNk.

This thread (http://forums.netduino.com/index.php?/topic/10479-netduino-plus-2-firmware-v431/) contains detailed instructions. However to access the download you need to create a blog account, which didn’t work for me in Chrome.

An alternate link to the firmware is http://static.netduino.com/downloads/netduinoupdate/NetduinoUpdate_4.3.2.3.zip, found on http://www.netduino.com/downloads/.

I also installed the STDFU drivers + tools (http://www.netduino.com/downloads/dfusedemo_3.0.3.zip) but I’m unsure whether this helped.

Finally, if you aren’t able to get the Netduino to be recognised by the VM, try enabling all usb devices in the VirtualBox control panel.