Gadgets depends on zeromq for it communications. I’ve found that the easist way to get zeromq installed on a Beaglebone is to use Ubuntu as the linux distribution. Angstrom does not include zeromq from its opkg system anymore. Here are the steps I use to get gadgets installed on my beaglebone.
Follow the instructions here: http://elinux.org/BeagleBoardUbuntu#Quantal_12.10_armhf
Here are the instructions from the relevant section:
2. After you have Ubuntu running on your beaglebone and you have a serial terminal, run the folling on your beaglebone:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev \
python-setuptools python-pip
3. You now have a build system installed on the beaglebone that can build zeromq. Currently apt-get installs zeromq-2.2, but gadgets has been developed with zeromq-3.2. Here is how to build it (You might want to check to see if there is a more recent version from http://www.zeromq.org/intro:get-the-software):
$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://download.zeromq.org/zeromq-3.2.2.tar.gz
$ tar xf zerommq-3.2.2.tar.gz
$ cd zeromq-3.2.2
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
4. Now install the python bindings to zeromq (once again, you might want to check for a more updated version):
$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/p/pyzmq/pyzmq-2.2.0.1.tar.gz
$ tar xf pyzmq-2.2.0.1.tar.gz
$ cd pyzmq-2.2.0.1
$ python setup.py install
5. Now install gadgets using pip (which you installed in step 2):
$ sudo pip install gadgets
6. If you plan on using the pwm pins of your Beaglebone you need to enable the pwm clocks. Gadgets includes a script that does that for you (gadgets.uitls.enable_pwm), but it is nice to have it enabled by default. Edit the /etc/rc.local file so the it goes from:
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
exit 0
To this:
#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
modprobe ti_tscadc
enable-pwm
exit 0
Note: when you installed gadgets it installed the enable-pwm script that rc.local will call.
Thats it. You now have gadgets installed. See the rest of the docs to see how to use it.