Where do I begin?!

[seamus]

I am just beginning with the dev kit I bought in December. The box has a URL: nordicsemi.com/start52840dk

This is not helpful. The only thing I find there is a PDF - apparently the same one I read before I decided to purchase the kit! 

I was expecting something more - some instructions along the lines of a few questions followed by some recommendations for software to download, and suggested references to review.

My development setup is: macOS Catalina (or Linux Ubuntu 20.04). I also have a nRF52840 Dongle - I had hoped to use this to communicate with my Raspberry Pi and some other embedded devices that I will use in my dev project. 

[Marte Myrvold]

Hi,

What software to download etc. depends on which of our SDKs you want to use. We have two that are supported on the nRF52840.

nRF5 SDK

The nRF5 SDK is the oldest of the two SDKs, and is made for the nRF5 Series (nRF51 and nRF52). You can download the SDK here, and the documentation for the SDK can be found on our infocenter. For both SDKs we have some getting started guides, which you should look at. The getting started with nRF5 SDK guide explains how to run precompiled examples, install the SDK, and compile and run examples etc.

In addition to this we have a guide on getting started with nRF5 SDK and SEGGER Embedded Studio (SES), which is the recommended IDE, and you'll be able to get a free SES license for Nordic Semiconductor Devices. You can also use Keil as IDE, but the code size is restricted to 32 Kbyte with the free version.

The nRF5 SDK offers multiple examples which you can use as a starting place for your application, and you can find them here. There's also nRF5 SDKs for Bluetooth Mesh and for Thread and Zigbee, both of which are based on nRF5 SDK.

nRF Connect SDK

The nRF Connect SDK (NCS) is the latest SDK, and contains cellular IoT in addition to the protocols in nRF5 SDK, for the nRF9160. NCS includes the Zephyr RTOS. The SDK can be found on github, and you can find documentation here, which is also where you'll find the getting started with NCS guide. There's a thorough guide for installing NCS, and you can either do it through one of our applications in nRF Connect for Desktop or manually. Since you're using macOs and Linux, you should either install it using the Getting Started Assistant or manually.

The recommended IDE to use with NCS is also SES, and the installation is explained in the guide on how to install the SDK, as well as other required tools. You can also build and flash your application using command line and west, which is also explained in the guides. The examples in NCS can be found here.

If you want more information about the nRF52840 DK itself, you can find that here. There you'll find hardware description etc.

Best regards,

Marte