When I noticed that there was a new version of ev3dev available (ev3dev-jessie-ev3-generic-2017-02-11) I decided it was a good opportunity to re-do my system setup post.

This effort also included creating scripts that perform as many of the setup steps as possible.

This post updates and mostly replaces my previous ev3dev blog post.

The first steps are to download and install the latest version of ev3dev from the ev3dev website, and get the EV3 connected to the local wifi network.

Then check out the git repo containing the setup scripts here: https://github.com/donmeyer/ev3-setup

Run the Mac setup script  setupMac.sh.

Then ssh into the EV3 and run the setup script  setupEV3.sh.

You may want to edit that script to remove the Textmate ‘rmate’ setup step, although it’s harmless if you don’t use Textmate.

What do the setup scripts do?

setupMac.sh

1. Copies the host RSA key to the EV3.
2. Copies the setup files to the EV3.
3. Copies a local ‘Scripts’ folder to the EV3. (If you don’t have one of these, comment out this line.)

setupEV3.sh

1. Sets up the RSA key. This allows you to ssh to the EV3 without needing a password each time.
2. Installs the Python FTP library.
3. Installs a simple FTP server.
4. Makes any Python scripts copied from the (optional) Scripts folder.

After running both scripts, reboot the EV3 and when it finishes booting you should be able to access the FTP server as well as ssh into the EV3 without needing to enter the password.