Linux Driver Package on Raspberry Pi

The Meinberg driver package for Linux can also be used on a Raspberry Pi. However, installation can be a bit tricky due to limitations of the Debian/Raspbian Linux image available at
https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/

In the example below this Raspbian image was used:
2014-06-20-wheezy-raspbian.zip

In order to be able to build any external kernel module for the running kernel the kernel sources and the kernel configuration matching exactly the running kernel need to be available on the build system.

This can eventually be skipped if the system must not be upgraded.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Eventually this also upgrades the kernel to the current version, e.g. to 3.18.8+ in this example.

Reboot the PI to activate the new firmware, then check the kernel version:

uname -r   # --> 3.18.8+

Manually downloading and configuring the kernel sources properly for the running kernel can be cumbersome for the Raspberry Pi.

For newer kernels there may be a package with the required kernel headers available, which can easily be installed via the package management:

sudo apt-get install raspberrypi-kernel-headers

However, for older Raspbian versions this package may not be available, or an appropriate package may not yet be available for a very new kernel. See:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/kernel/headers.md

There is a script called rpi-source which can be used to look for, and install the kernel sources matching the running kernel. Detailed information on this script is available at
https://github.com/notro/rpi-source/wiki

Download the script and make the script file executable. Please note the command below should be one long line which may have been wrapped around here:

sudo wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/notro/rpi-source/master/rpi-source -O /usr/bin/rpi-source

Eventually we first need to make the rpi-source script executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-source

Make sure the package ncurses-devel is installed which is eventually required to manage the kernel configuration:

sudo apt-get install ncurses-dev

Try running the rpi-source script which eventually complains that the currently installed version of the gcc compiler package doesn't match the gcc version which has been used to build the kernel. E.g.:

rpi-source -v
ERROR:
gcc version check: mismatch between gcc (4.6.3) and /proc/version (4.8.3)

The rpi-source wiki page mentioned above explains details how different compiler versions can be installed in parallel, and one of them be selected to be used preferably.

Once the gcc version is correct the script should download the kernel sources:

rpi-source -v

Usually the kernel config file .config is created by the script, and make modules_prepare is executed, so after this command has finished it should be possible to build extra driver packages matching the running kernel.

Download the current driver packagefrom the Meinberg website. In the command below the parameter –no-check-certificate is used since the Meinberg web server now always uses SSL, and thus redirects to a https connection.

Unless wget on the Pi has been provided with the root certificate of the GlobalSign Certification Authority, wget will be unable to verify the SSL certificate used by the Meinberg web site, so either the root certificate needs to be provided, or wget needs to be run with the –no-check-certificate parameter:

wget --no-check-certificate https://www.meinbergglobal.com/download/drivers/mbgtools-lx-4.2.6.tar.gz

Please use the appropriate name of the current driver version. Unpack the driver source and change into the driver's base directory:

tar xvzf mbgtools-lx-4.2.6.tar.gz
cd mbgtools-lx-4.2.6

Please refer to the README file in the driver package, or the Meinberg knowledge base article on the driver package for Linux.

If anything goes wrong, or doesn't work as explained above, please contact support@meinberg.de.

— Martin Burnicki martin.burnicki@meinberg.de 2019-02-12