meshtastic/docs/software/other/install-OSX.md
2022-01-24 10:25:53 +00:00

2.8 KiB

id title sidebar_label
install-OSX OSX Install OSX

(Here's some quick tips and troubleshooting on installing the device code from OS-X, thanks to @android606)

First time using LoRa for anything, just checking it out.

I bought a T-Beam on eBay, followed the instructions to install the firmware here: https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-esp32

I'm using a Mac for this, so that might account for differences in the steps to get it working. I just swapped out my SSD last month, I'm using a pretty fresh install of OS X 10.15.3/Catalina.

I got it working fairly smoothly, but there were two hang-ups I thought I'd mention:

  1. I am about 0% familiar with Python, so there were some issues getting esptool.py working. Basically, this OS X comes with Python 2.7 and no pip. Pip installed okay, so I used it to install esptool. Esptool appeared to install correctly, but I couldn't get it to work to save my life. Simply typing "esptool.py" doesn't work, and I just don't know enough python to figure out why. For some reason, it installs but isn't in the $PATH anywhere, and I don't know where it went. Python 2.7 kept giving me warning messages about being old and unsupported, so I figured that might be a hint that I should upgrade.

    I ended up doing this:

    • brew install pyenv (to install pyenv)
    • pyenv install 3.7.7 (to install and select python 3.7.7)
    • pyenv global 3.7.7 (to select the new version of python)
    • brew install pip (to install pip3)
    • pip3 install --upgrade esptool (note I specifically had to use "pip3", not "pip")

    ...then I was able to execute esptool.py

  2. esptool.py didn't work though, because the virtual com port wasn't showing up as a device. I had to install a driver from Silicon Labs, which I got here: driver for the CP210X USB to UART bridge from Silicon Labs

After I installed that, esptool.py was completely happy and the firmware loaded right up.

Troubleshooting

1. Running into trouble when installing esptool via brew

  • Make sure that openssl is installed first:
brew install openssl
  • Set some flags in your bash/zsh/whichever profile for esptool to install cryptography as a dependency correctly:
export LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib"
export CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/opt/openssl/include"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib/pkgconfig"
  • attempt a reinstall of esptool
pip3 install --upgrade esptool

2. I can't see the usb device as /dev/tty[something]: