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Development Guide for MacOS

Setup

To get started with development on MacOS, follow these steps:

  1. Install Xcode Command Line Tools: These tools are necessary for compiling and building software. 
    xcode-select --install
  2. Install Homebrew: Homebrew is a package manager for MacOS. Follow the instructions on brew.sh to install it.
  3. Install Required Packages: Open a terminal and run the following command to install required packages: 
    brew install screen

You should now be able to run the make command in the root of the repo to get started.

A note on make install

make install is a command that can be used to quickly install the code you're working on onto the board. On Mac, you can find the location of your mount by looking for a mount named PYSQUARED in your /Volumes directory 

ls -lah /Volumes | grep PYSQUARED
...
drwx------@  1 nate  staff    16K Jan  9 08:09 PYSQUARED/

For example, if the board is mounted at /Volumes/PYSQUARED/ then your install command will look like: 

make install BOARD_MOUNT_POINT=/Volumes/PYSQUARED/

Accessing the Serial Console

To see streaming logs and use the on-board repl you must access the Circuit Python serial console. Accessing the serial console starts with finding the tty port for the board. The easiest way to do that is by plugging in your board and running: 

ls -lah /dev
Look for the file that was created around the same time that you plugged in the board. For Mac users the port typically looks like /dev/tty.usbmodem101. You can then connect to the board using the screen command: 
screen /dev/tty.usbmodem101

For more information visit the Circuit Python Serial Console documentation.