document

[hartytp]

• installation
• launching
• high-level overview/block diagram/what problems does this solve
• how the scheduler works
• notifier/rpc interfaces
• hardware

[hartytp]

• document what "fast mode" means, how it works and why we use it
• conda environments and reliance on artiq

[hartytp]

• maybe add a note about the very long settling time for the Leoni switches leading to duty-cycle dependent power levels. Or, if auto-exposure makes this a non-issue then don't bother.

[AUTProgram]

• document how ports are set on which the server listens; mention what the default ports are

[AUTProgram]

• Clarify that after installing the conda package (or cloning repository), there will be no server_config file in root repository. It has to be copied there either manually or will be copied automatically from shared area when server is first started

[AUTProgram]

• Clarify how ownership mechanism works; lock function can be called multiple times without having to unlock first (as long as correct owner is passed)

[hartytp]

@aquinn2 while you're getting this up and running, it would be a massive help if you could contribute some documentation as well. In particular, things like documenting the configuration files etc

[ljstephenson]

@hartytp looks like a fair part of this can be marked as complete!

One point on installation to clarify - am I correct that only the client is included as part of artiq-env, and the server always needs to be installed via pip?

[hartytp]

@hartytp looks like a fair part of this can be marked as complete!

...ish...IIRC last time a student tried to follow the instructions they hit a few things that were unclear/missing (can't remember what they were though).

One point on installation to clarify - am I correct that only the client is included as part of artiq-env, and the server always needs to be installed via pip?

Yes.

One issue is that the wand server package doesn't build on buildbot right now (IIRC it's due to not having a source for PyDAQMX, but we could easily build a conda package for that as well) but that should be quick to fix.

More generally, what's the philosophy here? Do we want to include things like wand server in artiq-env? I believe that now that sipyco has been broken out of artiq, the requirements for wandserver are pretty minimal, so it might make sense to create a new wand_server environment with just the packages needed.

[hartytp]

@hartytp looks like a fair part of this can be marked as complete!

Not just the installation. I think that in lots of places people have struggled to use WaND without an in-person tutorial suggest that the docs aren't complete enough (I'm sure everyone diligently RTFMs before asking questions).