I2C TOOLS FOR LINUX

This package contains an heterogeneous set of I2C tools for the Linux kernel as well as an I2C library. The tools were originally part of the lm-sensors project but were finally split into their own package for convenience. The library is used by some of the tools, but can also be used by third-party applications. The tools and library compile, run and have been tested on GNU/Linux on ODROID, Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone boards.

Implemented Changes

• By default i2-tools/py-smbus module does not provide an option to forcefully open a i2c-device-address (for safe reasons). But i2get command gives option -y to read/write.
• Added the write_i2c_block and read_i2c_block methods

At now the python-smbus seems to be surpassed by new implementation python-smbus2 which is a drop in replacement in most cases.

CONTENTS

The various tools included in this package are grouped by category, each category has its own sub-directory:

• eeprom
  Perl scripts for decoding different types of EEPROMs (SPD, EDID...) These scripts rely on the "eeprom" kernel driver. They are installed by default.

• eeprog, eepromer
  Tools for writing to EEPROMs. These tools rely on the "i2c-dev" kernel driver. They are not installed by default.

• include
  C/C++ header files for I2C and SMBus access over i2c-dev. Installed by default.

• lib
  The I2C library, used by eeprog, py-smbus and tools. Installed by default.

• py-smbus
  Python wrapper for SMBus access over i2c-dev. Not installed by default.

• stub
  A helper script to use with the i2c-stub kernel driver. Installed by default.

• tools
  I2C device detection and register dump tools. These tools rely on the "i2c-dev" kernel driver. They are installed by default.

LICENSE

Check the documentation of individual tools for licensing information. The library is released under the LGPL version 2.1 or later, while most tools are released under the GPL version 2 or later, but there are a few exceptions.

INSTALLATION

There's no configure script, so simply run make to build the library and tools, and make install to install them. You also can use make uninstall to remove all the files you installed. By default, files are installed in /usr/local but you can change the location by editing the Makefile file and setting prefix to wherever you want. You may change the C compiler and the compilation flags as well, and also decide whether to build the static library or not.

Optionally, you can run make strip prior to make install if you want smaller binaries. However, be aware that this will prevent any further attempt to debug the library and tools.

In case of installation on Ubuntu, is useffull to use checkinstall utility, which installs the i2c-tools as a deb package.

If you wish to include sub-directories that are not enabled by default, then just set them via the EXTRA make variable. For example, to build py-smbus, do:

  $ make EXTRA="py-smbus"

Do not forget to run sudo ldconfig after make install and sudo python setup.py install

DOCUMENTATION

The main tools have manual pages, which are installed by make install. See these manual pages for command line interface details and tool specific information.

The other tools come with simple text documentation, which isn't installed.

QUESTIONS AND BUG REPORTS

Please post your questions and bug reports to the linux-i2c mailing list: [email protected]
with Cc to the current maintainer: Jakub Kakona [email protected]

For additional information about this list, see: http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html#linux-i2c/