# AlazarTech Linux Packages

This document details the architecture of AlazarTech Linux packages. To get the
latest version of all packages and of this document, please go to the 
"Linux Resources" in the "Drivers" section of your product's web page.

## Getting Started

                      +----------------------+
                      |                      |
                      |      Custom App      |
                      |                      |  
                      +---|--------------|---+  
                          |              |  
    +------------+  +-----|-----+  +-----|-----+
    |            |  |           |  |  ats-gpu  |
    |            |  |           |  |           |
    | FrontPanel |  | ats-devel |  |  -base    |  ...
    |            |  | (ATS-SDK) |  |  -oct     |
    |            |  |           |  |  -nufft   |
    +------|-----+  +-----|-----+  +-----|-----+
           |              |              |
    +------|--------------|--------------|-----+
    |                                          |
    |                  libats                  |
    |                                          |
    +----|------------|-------------------|----+
         |            |                   |
    +----|----+  +----|----+         +----|----+
    |         |  |         |         |         |
    | ATS9373 |  | ATS9371 |   ...   | ATS9182 |
    | driver  |  | driver  |         | driver  |
    |         |  |         |         |         |
    +---------+  +---------+         +---------+


The AlazarTech software components used to communicate with digitizer
boards and make acquisitions are divided into several packages that must be 
installed separately. Descriptions of each component are in the next section.

If you want to programmatically control your AlazarTech digitizer, you will need 
the following components:

-   driver package for your AlazarTech digitizer
-   libats
-   ats-devel

If you want to simply use a GUI to immediately start acquiring data, you will 
need the following components:

-   driver package for your AlazarTech digitizer
-   libats
-   alazar-front-panel

If you want to use a GPU for signal processing of data acquired from your 
AlazarTech digitizer, you will need the following components:

-   driver package for your AlazarTech digitizer
-   libats
-   ats-devel
-   ats-gpu-base
-   ats-gpu-oct
-   (optional) ats-gpu-nufft


## Description of AlazarTech Linux Packages

-   libats: The shared library that allows user programs to communicate with the
    board drivers.

-   ats-devel: (ATS-SDK for Linux) Contains the header files, documentation, and 
    code samples required to build software that links against the AlazarTech 
    library.

-   alazar-front-panel: A GTK-based virtual oscilloscope application that allows
    users to get started using the boards without developping their own
    software.

-   driver packages: These packages each contain the driver for one of
    AlazarTech's products.

-   ats-gpu-base: Contains the header files, documentation, and code samples
    required to write an application in C/C++ to transfer data from AlazarTech 
    PCIe digitizers to a CUDA-enabled GPU. Requires expert programming knowledge 
    of CUDA development. Support is limited to the published user manual; no 
    other technical support will be provided. Currently only available in .deb 
    for x86_64. 

-   ats-gpu-oct: Contains the header files, documentation, and code samples
    required to write an application to perform high-speed floating-point FFT on
    k-clocked data from AlazarTech PCIe digitizers. Requires ats-gpu-base and
    ats-devel (ATS-SDK). Currently only available in .deb for x86_64.

-   ats-gpu-nufft: Contains the header files, documentation, and code samples
    required to write an application to perform high-speed floating-point FFT on
    data that is uniformly sampled in time from AlazarTech PCIe digitizers. 
    Requires ats-gpu-base, ats-gpu-oct, and ats-devel (ATS-SDK). Currently only 
    available in .deb for x86_64.

> Note: Beginning with driver version 7.1.2, Linux drivers use DKMS to not be 
> dependent on the exact kernel version that the host machine is running.


## Where to find AlazarTech Linux Packages

-   Driver packages, libats, and alazar-front-panel can be found in the 
    `Linux Resources` section of each digitizer board's product page on 
    <http://www.alazartech.com>.

-   ats-devel, also known as ATS-SDK, can be found at
    <https://www.alazartech.com/en/product/ats-sdk/27/>.

-   ats-gpu-base can be found at 
    <https://www.alazartech.com/en/product/ats-gpu-base/30/>.

-   ats-gpu-oct: can be found at
    <https://www.alazartech.com/en/product/ats-gpu-oct/31/>.

-   ats-gpu-nufft: can be found at  
    <https://www.alazartech.com/en/product/ats-gpu-nufft/34/>.


## Installation Instructions

AlazarTech packages can be installed using the standard tools of Linux
distributions, e.g. yum/dnf on RHEL/CentOS and Fedora, and apt-get/apt on
Debian/Ubuntu. For more information, refer to the documentation of your Linux
distribution.

On development machines, AlazarTech recommends to install all the packages
provided with the boards. On the other hand, in a production environment, the
`ats-gpu`, `ats-devel` and `alazar-front-panel` packages are optional. It is 
enough to install the `libats` package in addition to user-developped 
applications and the drivers corresponding to the boards used to get a working 
system.

## Contact Us

Please contact us if you have any questions or comments, or need
assistance.

-   Web: <http://www.alazartech.com>
-   Email: support@alazartech.com
-   Phone: 514-426-4899
-   Fax: 514-426-2723
-   Mail: Alazar Technologies Inc. 6600 Trans-Canada Highway, Suite 310
    Pointe-Claire, QC Canada H9R 4S2