This… this is not a toy

This week has been a slog trying to get my dev kit up and running. I suppose the last time I setup a dev kit, it was an EZ-KIT LITE. This one is more of a DIFFICULT-KIT HEAVY.

While I appreciate the effort that went into the bring-up documentation…

1. It took me a while to even find the right document, with hundreds of loosely structured files in the online project kit.

2. The software bring-up guide flies at various levels, and I’m not always certain when I’m getting an overview of the process, a simple command to run the whole process, or a detailed set of step-by-step instructions to implement the process. Sometimes I get both—a step-by-step list of how the process works, followed by another step-by-step list of detailed commands on how to execute it.

3. Some of the content is outdated, particularly when it comes to versioning. One example: insisting on installing a specific (and much older) version of the Java JDK which is no longer supported and publicly available because of security risks. In this instance, I just installed the next version up. I haven’t yet gotten to the part in the bring-up where this could matter.

4. There’s a general assumption in the docs that comes across as, you know this stuff already, we’re just going to walk you through the details of our unique project. That could be OK, but when the details aren’t 100% clear nor 100% accurate, there isn’t always context available on the why we’re taking these steps.

In general, it feels like I missed all the lectures and I only have the notes from one of the students.

Halfway through the week I thought I had a breakthrough when I discovered an application that is a ready-to-go configuration tool for the dev kit. I thought, “Hey this is exactly what I was looking for, let’s just start here!” It turns out, yes, that app will deliver on that promise, but I still have to manually build all of the images and flash them onto the board… which meant… back to the slog of building everything from scratch.