Installing `lib601` On GNU/Linux

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In the past, installing lib601 has been tested and known to work on Debian, openSUSE, Fedora, and Arch Linux. We expect the 6.01 software to work on other distributions, but other distributions have not been tested.

1) Get Python, tk, numpy, and matplotlib

Make sure that your machine is running Python 3.5 or newer. You can use either your distribution's package manager (apt, synaptic, yum, pacman, etc.) to download and install the python3 package (make sure it's version 3.5 or newer), or you can compile Python from source.

You will also need to install numpy and matplotlib. Again, installation will be dependent on your distribution. For recent Debian-based distros, there are packages (python3-numpy and python3-matplotlib) that you can install with apt. For other distributions, you can either compile from source, find the appropriate package for your distribution, or install via pip3.

You may also need to install tk manually. On Ubuntu, this is the python3-tk package in APT.

2) Get Idle, or Some Other Plain-text Editor

In 6.01, we recommend using IDLE as a Python editor unless you already have a favorite text editor that you are more comfortable with (staff will help you get up and running with IDLE, but in general, we will not be able to help with configuration of other text editors). If your Python distribution did not come with IDLE (type "idle3" at a command line to see if it's defined), there is usually an IDLE package (idle3 in APT) that you can install with your distribution's package manager.

3) Install 6.01 Software and SoaR

Download the lib601 software, as well as the soar and cmax applications:

Save those files somewhere, use cd to navigate to the directory where you saved them, and run the following command to extract the files:

tar xvfz lib601-S19-1.tar.gz

Then, use cd to move into the directory that was just created (lib601-S19-1), and run:

sudo python3 setup.py install

Then repeat this process (extract the files, and run setup.py) for both Soar-1.5.2.tar.gz and CMax-5.13.tar.gz as well.

3.1) udev Rule for Robots

If you want to use your own machine to control the physical robots, you may wish to install the following udev rule to /etc/udev/rules.d: 70-persistent-serial.rules

When you plug in a robot, this rule will set the permissions on the serial device so that you can communicate with the robot.

Please send comments, fixes, and bug reports to hz@mit.edu. For help installing, please come to office hours and ask in person.