This MPSSE page has been deprecated in favor of the much simpler Blinka support library which is documented here https://learn.adafruit.com/circuitpython-on-any-computer-with-ft232h This page is for historical/research purposes only, Python 2 is completely deprecated and we do not support the old Python GPIO library anymore!

To access the MPSSE mode on Linux we need to install libftdi and the Adafruit Python GPIO library.  Carefully follow the steps below to install these libraries.

Note that these steps are made for Ubuntu 12.04/14.04 and should work with any Debian-based distribution.  If you're using a different distribution you might need to check its package manager for the appropriate commands to install the mentioned dependencies.

In a command terminal execute the following commands to install libftdi and its dependencies.

NOTE: This assumes you're installing on a Debian/Ubuntu/Raspbian-based system and will use Python 2.7.  If you're using a different version of Python or your distribution installs Python in a different location you might need to change the paths of the -DPYTHON_xxxx environment variables in the cmake command.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential libusb-1.0-0-dev swig cmake python-dev libconfuse-dev libboost-all-dev
wget http://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/download/libftdi1-1.2.tar.bz2
tar xvf libftdi1-1.2.tar.bz2
cd libftdi1-1.2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/usr/" -DPYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR="/usr/include/python2.7" -DPYTHON_LIBRARIES="/usr/lib/python2.7/" ../
make
sudo make install

The commands above should complete without any errors.  If you do see errors, make sure all the dependencies were installed with the apt-get install command.

Next download the Adafruit Python GPIO library by clicking the button below:

Unzip the archive and navigate to the folder inside a terminal.  Then run the following command to install the library:

sudo python setup.py install

You should see the Python library successfully install without any errors.  

To test the libraries are installed run the following command in a terminal to open the Python interpretor:

At the Python interpretor >>> prompt type the following commands to test loading the libraries:

import Adafruit_GPIO
import ftdi1

You should see no response from the Python interpretor after entering each line.  If you do see an error that a module cannot be loaded, go back to the libftdi installation steps above and carefully check they completed successfully.

If there are no errors, congratulations you've successfully installed libftdi and the Adafruit Python GPIO library!  Move on to the next section to learn how to access the MPSSE mode GPIO, SPI, I2C, etc.

To quit the Python interpretor enter the following:

This guide was first published on Nov 12, 2014. It was last updated on Nov 12, 2014.

This page (Linux (Deprecated)) was last updated on Nov 10, 2014.

Text editor powered by tinymce.