nRF52840 USB dongle in linu

[TC]

AS title, we want to integrate nRF52840 USB dongle in linux even in X86 or ARM.

I know the are repos for pc-ble-driver and  pc-ble-driver-py.

We are more interesting in pc-ble-driver-py for controlling the BLE.

Are there any docs to guide how to get nRF52840 usb dongle works in ubuntu(x86) or RPi(arm)?

Just wonder if the pc-ble-driver-py verified in both ubuntu and raspberry pi OS recently?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

The pc-ble-driver is based on the old SoftDevices that are no longer actively maintained. As you are using Linux, I would consider a different approach, running the controller on the nRF52840 dongle (HCI over USB sample from nRF connect SDK) and BlueZ as the host. This way, you can use the nRF52840 dongle as any other Bluetooth LE adapter.

[TC]

Hi,
We still want to try pc-ble-driver-py.
So far, we can run advertising.py in x86 linux.
We try to build the pc-ble-driver in arm, but run fail with example in pc-ble-driver-py.
The reason why is the symbol with prefix 'PyInit' was not found in our building library.

ImportError: dynamic module does not define module export function (PyInit_libpc_ble_driver_shared_sd_api_v3)

The symbol exist in x86 prebuild library which install from pip.

d$ strings ~/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pc_ble_driver_py/lib/_nrf_ble_driver_sd_api_v5.so |grep PyInit
_ZZ32PyInit__nrf_ble_driver_sd_api_v5E11SWIG_module
PyInit__nrf_ble_driver_sd_api_v5.cold
PyInit__nrf_ble_driver_sd_api_v5
PyInit__nrf_ble_driver_sd_api_v5

Do you know what's the build environment for the prebuild library?

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

I do not have information on the environment that was used for creating the latest release binaries.

Note that ARM is not a supported platform and we do not have any suggestions on which changes that is needed to build pc-ble-driver for ARM.

[TC]

Is it possible to act as central and peripheral role at the same time if running the controller on the nRF52840 dongle (HCI over USB sample from nRF connect SDK) and BlueZ as the host.

[Einar Thorsrud]

Hi,

From the controller on the nRF perspective, there is no problem concurrently acting as a central and peripheral. I have not tested it with BlueZ myself, but I believe that should be no problem as well.

Regarding BlueZ, the Bluetooth SIG has a Bluetooth Technology for Linux Developers study guide, that I recommend you have a look at. It covers the basics of Bluetooth python programming on Linux using BlueZ.

[TC]

Thanks, that's helpful!