nRF Connect Installation on macOS (Manual Installation)

For the macOS manual installation process, 

Get the nRF Connect SDK code

It says create a folder called ncs to hold all nRF Connect SDK repositories, but doesn't specify a location to create this folder

Where should this folder be created please?

Hi,

Using the toolchain manager to install the nRF Connect SDK should work on macOS Monterey, and works well on my computer. Perhaps you can elaborate on what is not working? One important note though, is that for programming to work directly form VS Code you need to install the universal version of J-Link Software and Documentation Pack (with both Intel and ARM support in the same package).

alwalker said:

Where should this folder be created please?

I do not believe there is any restrictions on that, as long as your user is allowed to read and write to/from the location that is being used.

Hi Einar,

I set Bash as the terminal shell for both manual and automatic installations prior to starting them. For the Mac with the automatic installation, I can’t find either .bashrc or .zshrc files. I can’t see these files on the Mac with the manual installation either.

Kimd regards,

Al

Hi Al,

Aha. Did you set ZEPHYR_BASE somewhere else, then?

Hi Einar,

Per the automatic installation thread, I can't find either .bashrc or .bashprofile (or the zsh equivalents) in my Home folder, only .bash_history. In that file I find several of these pairs of statements:

echo ${ZEPHYR_BASE}
exit

But no indication of when they were executed.

I haven't manually set ZEPHYR_BASE anywhere on either installation, If it's been set somewhere then it's been done by the respective installation process.

Can I take it that the log entry regarding the J-Link version difference is for information only and can be ignored?

I understand from the automatic installation thread that the reason why the Open SEGGER J-Link button is not shown for the nRF Connect SDK v2.2.0 release is that SEGGER Embedded Studio has been discontinued (v2.0.0 Release Notes).

Kind regards,

Al

Hi Einar,

I installed nRF Connect SDK v2.2.0 via Toolchain Manager and from there opened Terminal and navigated to my workspace folder. I then did:

$mkdir ncs_audio

$cd ncs_audio

$mkdir nrf

$cd nrf

$west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio

$west update

This is up to the end of Step 3 of your instructions. What I found is that whilst west update appears to execute ok using my GitHub user name and current valid personal access token as the password, the west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio instruction didn't appear to do anything. After I executed west update I find that the nrf folder is empty:

Any ideas please?

(For security, computer name changed to 'COMPUTER' and user name to 'xxxxxxxx')

I did the Windows 11 installation which appears to have gone ok with no errors generated (I'll raise a separate ticket if I encounter any). I found that whether I used the Windows Command Prompt or Bash (both launched from SDK Connect SDK v2.0.0) and navigate to my workspace folder and execute west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio I find that a series of instructions are executed, but fails due to CongfigFile.LOCAL not being found and that I need to set WEST_CONFIG_LOCAL.

How do I do this please?

Kind regards,

Al

Hi Al,

alwalker said:

After I executed west update I find that the nrf folder is empty:

It looks like you missed a step. "west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio" is used to add audio suppor to a SDK you have already checked out. But based on what you wrote you made empty folders and never initialized them (note the command "west init -m github.com/.../sdk-nrf --mr v1.9.99-dev1" in my instructions). So what you saw is expected given this missing step.

However, now that nRF Connect SDK 2.0.0 is out, you can do this completely differently, as there is no need to check out the 1.9.99-dev1 tag. Simply use the toolchain manger to get 2.0.0, open a terminal from the toolchain manager and that will open a terminal at the location where the SDK is installed (so you see folders like zephyr, nrf, etc). There simply type "west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio" and then "west update", and you will get the audio repositories downloaded. Note that you will be asked for credentials in order to download the LC3 codec. If you do not have access to it, simply enter dummy user name and password. If you cancel (by ctrl-C), you will abort the update and miss some repositories.

Hi Al,

alwalker said:

After I executed west update I find that the nrf folder is empty:

It looks like you missed a step. "west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio" is used to add audio suppor to a SDK you have already checked out. But based on what you wrote you made empty folders and never initialized them (note the command "west init -m github.com/.../sdk-nrf --mr v1.9.99-dev1" in my instructions). So what you saw is expected given this missing step.

However, now that nRF Connect SDK 2.0.0 is out, you can do this completely differently, as there is no need to check out the 1.9.99-dev1 tag. Simply use the toolchain manger to get 2.0.0, open a terminal from the toolchain manager and that will open a terminal at the location where the SDK is installed (so you see folders like zephyr, nrf, etc). There simply type "west config manifest.group-filter +nrf5340_audio" and then "west update", and you will get the audio repositories downloaded. Note that you will be asked for credentials in order to download the LC3 codec. If you do not have access to it, simply enter dummy user name and password. If you cancel (by ctrl-C), you will abort the update and miss some repositories.

Thanks Einar, but I want to download the nRF5340_audio project to my workspace folder to keep al my projects organised. So I would select Open Terminal from nRF Connect SDK and then navigate to the specific folder location Home/workspace/ncs_audio/nrf/

What should the syntax of the west init statement be in this case please? Something like this?

west init -m github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf -mr v2.0.0

Kind regards,

Al

Hi,

If you want to check out a nRF Connect SDK release to a specific folder then go to that folder and type:

west init -m https://github.com/nrfconnect/sdk-nrf --mr v2.0.0

That will make a subfolder with the tag name and download all repos there. You can specify another folder if you like by adding the folder name at the end of the command. You can find details about this under Installing manually.

Hi Einar,

I appear to have the workspace folder structure already initialised for West as I get fatal error messages:

I then open a new terminal window from nRF Connect SDK and execute the west config and west update instructions there, whilst everything appears to execute ok, I still can't see any project files (see also private ticket for same issues on Windows installation):

Kind regards,

Al

Hi Al,

The west configuration is in a hidden folder (.west), and if you have initialized once it you cannot do it again, so you would have to delete the .west folder in this case.

Hi Einar,

Thanks, I found the hidden .west folder in my workspace folder and deleted it. I then navigated to Home/workspace/ncs_audio/nrf/ and executed the west init, west config and west update commands.

I now have a folder with the following folders

.west (hidden)

bootloader

mbedtls

modules

nrf

nrfxlib

test

tools

zephyr

It's not immediate obvious if any of these are the project files for the LE Audio implementation, can you advise please?

Kind regards,

Al