Recommendations for Working with Galileo Gen 2
####Intro I find the Intel website a bit confusing at first, so I thought I'd create a guide based on my personal experience with the Galileo that pairs nicely with this repo, and I could use to send to friends using the board. Gen2 is much more reliable the Gen1 of the board and has many improvements including standard usb, FTDI debugging, power management, and faster GPIO.
####Getting Started:
This page is a good starting point for getting oriented with the Galileo board, with links to the forum and example projects.
There is a setup guide for windows and one for mac.
####Recommended accessories: You will need some the following periferal hardware in order to have a nice workflow and access all the capabilities of your galileo:
a) Wifi Card, Half Height Adapter, Antennas (for wifi and AP capabilities)
b) An SD card (8 GB is good, but 2 or 4 will do)
c) an FTDI serial to USB cable for debugging. You will probably need to install drivers on your computer to use the cable.
If you are using the Galileo in an educational setting I also recommend checking out the IoT developers kit which has a nice selection of sensors from Seede Studios. I also like the sensors from DFRobot which pair really nicely with the io expansion board for easy hookup.
####Choosing a linux image for the board: If you are not using an SD card with the galileo - you might as well use an arduino. The SD card lets you put different versions of linux on the board, and experiment with your own builds. Currently the full version of linux linked on the software download page does not have a full set of development tools for compiling software, using git, gcc, make etc - so I recommend considering alternatives:
IOT Dev Kit Build I recommend using the "Internet of Things Development Kit" aka IOTDK - build documented here over the standard linux build as it is currently maintained on a regular basis by the Software and Services Group at Intel and has grown to have the most features of any builds to date including MRAA to interface with the GPIO that does not interfere with Arduino functionalities.
I made a guide for installing the build because it was not clear to me how to copy the image over to the SD card initially. I'm working with folks over in the software group to improve this user experience.
Custom Linux Builds on the Forum For more advanced users I started a build for makers who want to extend linux without breaking arduino compatability (if you want to mix nodejs and arduino, or python and arduino for example). Click here to directly download the build. It is maintained by Alex in his spare time. I am currently migrating from this build to the IOTDK because it has a growing opkg package management system (like apt-inst).
Debian on Galileo On the very edges of experimentation, a few users are experimenting with external builds of Debian on Galileo. Although you can install Debian and it will work well - you won't benefit from many of the utilities and Arduino integration that developers at Intel are releasing. I keep an SD card with this build for more experimental projects.
####Download the Arduino IDE: The arduino IDE for Galileo is a modification of the Arduino IDE and should be in a seperate directory. You will find the IDE Download Page here.
####Try our software! Our team has been working for the last year on a project called ConnectAnyThing for novice users to program the board wirelessly using a mobile phone or tablet. The project has gained a lot of traction in middle and high school setttings and we use it internally when we want to link simple inputs (sensor) with outputs (actuators). It's free and awesome!
This repository, MakerNode is another project (WORK IN PROGRESS) to improve the workflow for nodejs development directly on the board using MRAA, galileo-io, johnny-five, and some custom sublime plugins.
####Resources I frequently use the Galileo forum (it takes a while to find the right forum in a large corporation) to search for common issues and bugs. It has moderators and a few very active participants and generally gives you a sense of what many of the advanced users are doing with the linux distributions.
The IoT Developer Zone Library has a bunch of examples of how to program with Eclipse in C++, develop companion apps with the XDK, and use javascript.
Cheers, Seth