This repo contains RPM spec files and patches for the linux-gpib project drivers and library for GPIB (IEEE-488) adapters.

These are targeted at Fedora and RHEL/CentOS 7, but they can probably be made to work with SUSE or other RPM distros, though I haven't bothered to put in all of the logic to do that. The package also tries to adhere to the Fedora packaging guidelines.

Installation

sudo dnf copr enable vddvss/linux-gpib

sudo dnf install dkms-linux-gpib linux-gpib

IMPORTANT: If you are using the HP/Agilent/Keysight 82357A, 82357B, 82341C, 82341D, or 82350A, or the NI GPIB-USB-B, you will also need to install the appropriate firmware package available at https://github.com/vddvss/linux-gpib-firmware-packaging. No firmware is needed for the NI-GPIB-USB-HS/HS+.

Extra Packages

The repo also contains bindings, documentation, and development packages:

Type	Package Name
Development	linux-gpib-devel
Extra documentation	linux-gpib-doc
Guile 1.8	guile18-linux-gpib
Perl	perl-LinuxGpib
PHP	php-linux-gpib
Python 2	python2-linux-gpib
Python 3	python3-linux-gpib
Tcl	tcl-linux-gpib

Device setup

These packages include new udev rules and an updated device initialization process using systemd.

If you have more than one adapter connected or if you want to change the minor number for the gpib device node (e.g. for /dev/gpib1, the minor number is 1), you will also need to add a custom udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d to connect the device to the minor number. The priority of the udev rule must be less than 60.

For example, to setup an Agilent 52357B with the serial number MY12345678 that you want to access at /dev/gpib1, you could add the following to /etc/udev/rules.d/59-my-gpib-adapter.rules. The minor device number is set by the value of the ID_GPIB_MINOR variable.

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", \
    ATTR{idVendor}=="0957", ATTR{idProduct}=="0718", \
    ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="MY12345678", ENV{ID_GPIB_MINOR}="1"

Note that for the Agilent 82357B, the ID_SERIAL_SHORT may not be the same as the number printed on your adapter--I think this may be an artifact of the firmware upload. To find out the correct serial number to use, run udevadm monitor -u -p, plug in the adapter and look for the correct number. For the NI-GPIB-USB-HS, you may need to prepend a 0 to the serial number printed on your adapter (i.e. 1234567 becomes 01234567).

After doing this, run:

sudo udevadm control --reload

Notes

These packages have only been tested on Fedora 28 with a Agilent/Keysight 82375B USB adapter and a NI-GPIB-USB-HS adapter. Other versions of Fedora and other adapters should work, but please open an issue or submit a pull request if you run into problems.

Patch notes

This repo contains several patches to upstream, including one to change the udev rules to use a uaccess tag for the device nodes, instead of setting the access mode and group. As a result, users will not need to be in the gpib group in order to use the adapter, and the device will be accessible to logged in users.

To restore the default behavior, create a file at /etc/udev/rules.d/61-linux-gpib-defaults.rules with the following contents:

ACTION!="remove", KERNEL=="gpib[0-9]*", MODE="0660", GROUP="gpib", TAG-="uaccess"

After doing this, run:

sudo udevadm control --reload

If you have already plugged in an adapter (which loads the kernel module), you will need to unplug it and run:

# for Agilent 82357A/B
sudo modprobe -r agilent_82357a gpib_common

# for NI-GPIB-* adapters
sudo modprobe -r ni_usb_gpib gpib_common

The priority of this udev rule must be greater than 60 but less than 70.

Changelog

Version 4.2.0 of the upstream driver changed the device initialization process to allow USB adapters to be used without editing the gpib.conf file. Prior versions of this repo included the linux-gpib-defaults-agilent-82357a and linux-gpib-defaults-ni-gpib-usb packages, which changed this file to set the default adapter. These packages are no longer needed and have been removed from the repository.

Build Status

Credits

There are quite a few installation guides and packaging specfiles for Linux-GPIB floating around online, since installing and packaging Linux-GPIB can be somewhat challenging. So credit goes to all those who have posted their instructions.

In particular, the dkms.conf file is adapted from the Arch AUR linux-gpib-dkms repo. The PLD Linux spec was also quite helpful in putting this file together.