Overview

This installation guide is specifically designed to enable individuals and researchers to get up and running with F´ quickly. Larger projects with specific requirements may need to extend this process.

Note: See the troubleshooting section at the bottom for help resolving common issues found during F´ installs.

Sections:

• System Requirements
• Creating a New Project
• Working With An Existing Project
• Troubleshooting

System Requirements

F´ depends on several items before the user should attempt to install it. These requirements are listed below and the user should ensure they are installed before proceeding with this guide.

Requirements:

1. Linux, macOS, or WSL on Windows
2. git
3. CMake 3.16 or newer. CLI tool must be available on the system path.
4. CLang or GNU C and C++ compilers (e.g. gcc and g++)
5. Python 3.8+, virtual environments, and PIP

Latest versions of PIP are strongly recommended. See Recommended PIP Versions

For build host architectures other than x86_64 or aarch64, and systems with older PIP versions, Java is required

Ubuntu and Debian users should see notes on Python installation

macOS users must ensure the CMake command line utility is on their path

Other OS-specific notes are in the Troubleshooting section below.

Creating a new F´ Project

The ecosystem of tools supporting F´ is installed as Python packages available via PIP. These packages are installed in a virtual environment by the F´ Bootstrap tool. It is recommended to have one virtual environment per project.

1. Install the F´ Bootstrap tool

The F´ Bootstrap tool is responsible for creating a new F´ project and installing the Python dependencies within the project’s virtual environment. Install the fprime-bootstrap tool with:

pip install fprime-bootstrap

Some macOS users see an SSL error. Correct the SSL error and rerun the above command.

2. Create a new project

The entrypoint to developing with F´ is creating a new project. This will clone the F´ repository and install the full tool suite of the specified version for working with the selected version of F´. To create a new project, run:

fprime-bootstrap project

This command will ask for some input. Sample responses are below:

  [1/1] Project name (MyProject): MyProject

This commands perform the following actions:

• Create a new git repository with the standard F´ project structure
• Create a new virtual environment within the project and install dependencies

3. Activate the virtual environment

Once the project is created, activate the virtual environment to use the F´ tool suite.

cd MyProject
. fprime-venv/bin/activate

Always remember to activate the virtual environment whenever you work with this F´  project.

Next steps: HelloWorld Tutorial

Working With An Existing Project

Sometimes users wish to work with existing F´ projects. Once the project has been acquired, users should install the tools associated with that project. This is done in one of two ways:

a) fprime-bootstrap clone

pip install fprime-bootstrap
fprime-bootstrap clone <project_url>

Note: replace with the URL of a project hosted on a remote Git repository

b) Manual clone

1. Ensure a virtual environment for this project has been created and activated

2. Download the project

   When using git and submodules, remember to run git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Install the required F´ tools version pip install -r <project>/fprime/requirements.txt

Some projects ship their own requirements.txt. Install using that file if it exists.

Troubleshooting

For users having issues, please see our troubleshooting guide.