dotnet on Linux with libusbdotnet dependency

Question

Aloha!

A little background... I am not a .Net programmer. I have done some gcc compiling of some C source code in the past, but not by trade. I do much of my hobbyist work Linux. I have a USB device that I need to access in Linux, but the source code is in .NET (FlashcatUSB Software located @ https://www.embeddedcomputers.net/software/).

I've followed these instructions to install .NET on Linux from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux-ubuntu#2004-

I can build the software and attempt to run the software, but accessing the USB device times out. These are the steps taken:

bguthrie@LinDesk01:~/Downloads/flashcat/Console$ dotnet build
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.10.1+2fd48ab73 for .NET
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Determining projects to restore...
Restored /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/FlashcatUSB_Console.vbproj (in 187 ms).
FlashcatUSB_Console -> /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/bin/Debug/net5.0/fcusb_console.dll

Build succeeded.
0 Warning(s)
0 Error(s)

Time Elapsed 00:00:03.75
bguthrie@LinDesk01:~/Downloads/flashcat/Console$ dotnet list FlashcatUSB_Console.vbproj package
Project 'FlashcatUSB_Console' has the following package references
[net5.0]:
Top-level Package Requested Resolved
> LibUsbDotNet 2.2.29 2.2.29

bguthrie@LinDesk01:~/Downloads/flashcat/Console$ dotnet publish -r linux-x64
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 16.10.1+2fd48ab73 for .NET
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Determining projects to restore...
Restored /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/FlashcatUSB_Console.vbproj (in 205 ms).
FlashcatUSB_Console -> /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/bin/Debug/net5.0/linux-x64/fcusb_console.dll
FlashcatUSB_Console -> /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/bin/Debug/net5.0/linux-x64/publish/

bguthrie@LinDesk01:~/Downloads/flashcat/Console$ dotnet /home/bguthrie/Downloads/flashcat/Console/bin/Debug/net5.0/linux-x64/fcusb_console.dll -check
Welcome to the FlashcatUSB interfacing software, build: 628
Copyright 2021 - Embedded Computers LLC
Running on: Unix (64 bit)
FlashcatUSB Script Engine build: 311
License status: non-commercial use only
Waiting for connected device ***timedout***
----------------------------------------------

anyone have any pointers?

Thanks. B.

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 30 '23 at 17:57

As I ran into the same problem, I dug deeper and ended up refactoring the software to work with LibUsbDotNet 3.0 which resolved the issue.

In order to narrow down the source of the problem, I first added "print" statements in various places (as the software does not have any traces that can be enabled). Printing out exceptions that were otherwise silently caught turned out to be particularly useful. Sometimes, as there is not always a console to print to, it can be helpful to write to a file instead.

This all sounds quite cumbersome, but, I could not find a suitable debugger for Visual Basic .NET that runs natively on Linux.

To inspect the packets that are transferred over USB to and from the device, I used Wireshark (and the usbmon Linux kernel module), which worked like a charm.

For the current status of my efforts, check out the FlashcatUSB forum and my GitHub repository.

dotnet on Linux with libusbdotnet dependency

1 Answers1