SUBMITTED TO IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, FEB. 2015
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ECEbuntu - An Innovative and Multi-Purpose
Educational Operating System for Electrical and
Computer Engineering Undergraduate Courses:
Installation Guide and Supplementary Material
Bilal Wajid, Ali Rıza Ekti, Mustafa Shawaqfeh, Student Members, IEEE, and Erchin Serpedin, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—ECEbuntu is free, easily distributable, customized
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS based operating system designed for electrical/electronics and computer engineering (ECE) students. ECEbuntu is aimed at universities and students as it represents
a cohesive environment integrating more than 30 pre-installed
software and packages all catering to undergraduate coursework offered in ECE/CS. ECEbuntu supports a wide range of
tools for programming, circuit analysis, printed circuit board
(PCB) design, mathematical and numerical analysis, network
analysis, microwave and RF transmission design. ECEbuntu is
free and is intended to be an effective alternative to the existing
costly and copyrighted software packages. ECEbuntu attempts
to reduce duplication of effort for building software workstations
in laboratories and is intended to act as a good teaching resource
for a class room setting.
Fig. 1: Disk Management
Index Terms—Electrical and computer engineering, Ubuntu,
Circuit design, Programming micro-controllers, Microwave and
RF transmission line analysis, Computer networks, Numerical
computation and visualization, PCB design, Computer programming, Remote access, Latex, Operating System, Linux, Electronics, Programming, Smith chart.
I. I NSTALLATION
ECEbuntu can be installed using the following steps:1. Freeing Disk Space for installation: If you are
currently using Windows on your system, proceed
to step 2. If you are using Mac proceed to step 3.
For other operating systems (OS), please refer to the
user-guide pertaining to your OS to free disk space for
installation.
2. Freeing Disk Space in Windows: (adapted from
http://technet.microsoft.com/:- Open the Disk Management console by typing
diskmgmt.msc at the command prompt; or go to
Control Panel, and type “Disk Management” at the
search bar, see Fig. 1.
- In Disk Management, right-click the volume that
you want to shrink, and then click Shrink Volume,
see Fig. 2.
The authors are with the Dept. of Electrical and Computer
Eng., Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843–3128,
USA. e-mails: {bilalwajidabbas, arekti, mustafa.shawaqfeh}@tamu.edu,
serpedin@ece.tamu.edu.
Fig. 2: Disk Management
- In the field provided in the Shrink dialog box, enter
the amount of space by which to shrink the disk,
see Fig. 3. The Shrink dialog box provides the
following information:
* Total Size Before Shrink In MB: Lists the total
capacity of the volume in MB. This is the
formatted size of the volume.
* Size Of Available Shrink Space In MB: Lists
the maximum amount by which you can shrink
the volume. This does not represent the total
amount of free space on the volume; rather,
it represents the amount of space that can be
removed, not including any data reserved for
the master file table, volume snapshots, page
SUBMITTED TO IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, FEB. 2015
TABLE I: Some Software tools in ECEbuntu ×64
Software tools in ECEbuntu
GNU R Core for Statistics
GTKWave
Microwave and RF transmission line calculator
LinSMith Smith Chart Generator
GeoGebra: Mathematical applets
Texlive
Texmaker
Eclipse and Eclipse-cdt for C/C++
Python: IDLE
Assembly Language: xSPIM a GUI for MIPS32
Assembly Language emulator
RKWard: GUI for R-Projects (R is a programming language used by Statisticians)
GNU Octave: Scientific Computing
QToctave QT end to Octave
NetEmul: the LAN network Simulator
gns3 Graphical Network Simulator: Program to
simulate networks
PUTTY: Connect to an SSH server with PuTTY
xSPIM a GUI for MIPS32 Assembly Language
emulator
emu8051: Intel 8051 Emulator
MCU 8051 IDE: GUI IDE for MCS-51 based
Microcontrollers
Oregano: Schematic Capture and Simulation of
Electronic Circuits
gEDA Schematics: Design Electronic Projects
Gwave: Waveform Viewer for Spice Simulation
Scilab: Scientific Software package for numerical
computations + Advanced Computations
KmPlot: Function Plotter
kiCad: PCB Suite
Fritzing: PCB Suite
VISOLATE: PCB CNC Converter
gEDA Schematic also known as PCB Project
PCB Designer
UNETbootin
VLC: multimedia player and streamer
Chromium: Google Chromium Browser
files, and temporary files.
* Enter The Amount of Space To Shrink In MB:
Lists the total amount of space that will be
removed from the volume. The initial value
defaults to the maximum amount of space that
can be removed from the volume. For optimal
drive performance, you should ensure that the
volume has at least 10 percent of free space
after the shrink operation. It is suggested that
at least 4 GB be reserved for ECEbuntu.
* Total Size After Shrink In MB: Lists what the
total capacity of the volume in MB will be
after you shrink the volume. This is the new
formatted size of the volume.
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Fig. 3: Disk Management
- Click Shrink, see Fig. 4. Once you have
unallocated space, shown in the green box in Fig.
4 leave it as it is. Do not make a new partition, as
the free space would be detected automatically by
the ECEbuntu installation system, and ECEbuntu
would be installed on it.
Fig. 4: Disk Management
3. Freeing Disk Space
http://macs.about.com/
in
MAC: (adapted from
- ‘Disk Utility’ bundled with OS X 10.5 has the
ability to add, delete, and resize hard drive partitions without first erasing the hard drive, see Fig.
5. Earlier versions of Disk Utility have been known
to loose data that is currently stored on the drive
being re-sized. Therefore, this guide is specific to
OS X 10.5. However, it may be usable for future
versions of the Mac OS. Kindly refrain from using
earlier version of Disk Utility for this process.
- Launch Disk Utility, located
tions/Utilities/, see Fig. 6.
at
/Applica-
- Current hard drives and volumes will display in
a list panel on the left side of the Disk Utility
window. Hard drives are listed with a generic
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- Click the ‘Partition’ button.
- Disk Utility will resize the selected partition
without losing any of the data on the volume.
Fig. 5: MAC OS X: Disk Utility: One can use the ‘Disk Utility’
to add, delete, and resize partitions without first erasing the
hard drive.
4. Download
ECEbuntu:
Go
to
http://people.tamu.edu/ bilalwajidabbas/ece.html to
download ECEbuntu.iso (about 2.2 GB is size). Burn
the .iso file in a DVD and insert the DVD into the
system. Reboot the system and make sure that the DVD
is chosen as the first boot priority. Once you boot from
the DVD you would see the following options, see Fig.
7:- live: boots the live system. If one wants to test
ECEbuntu before installing it in his/her system,
use the ‘live’ option. If you want to boot from the
live system go to Step 5.
- xforcevesa: boots the live system in “safe graphics”
mode.
- install: installs ECEbuntu in your system.
- memtest: checks the memory.
- hd: boots from the operating system currently
present in your system.
Fig. 6: MAC OS X: Disk Utility: Click the right-hand bottom
corner of the volume and drag to reduce the window.
disk icon, followed by the drive’s size, make, and
model. Volumes are listed below their associated
hard drive, see Fig. 6.
- Select the hard drive associated with the volume
you wish to shrink.
- Click the ‘Partition’ tab.
- Grab the right-hand bottom corner of the volume
and drag to shrink it. If one prefers, one can enter
a value in the ‘Size’ field.
- Click the ‘Apply’ button.
- Disk Utility will display a confirmation sheet
listing the volume you are about to resize.
Fig. 7: Boot options for ECEbuntu
5. Booting the Live System: Go to ‘live’ and press enter
as shown in Fig. 7. This will lead one to the login
screen, see Fig. 8. One can login as the ‘Guest’ or
one can create his/her own username and password.
To make your own username and password, Press
‘Ctrl+Alt+F5’. This brings you to the command prompt
as seen in Fig. 9.
6. To add a new user, type in the following commands:
- ‘sudo su’, this gives you the administrator privileges.
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Fig. 11: New user added
screen, see Fig. 13.
Fig. 8: Default Login Screen
Fig. 9: Default Login Command Prompt
- ‘adduser bilal wajid’, this command adds a new
user by the name of ‘bial wajid’. You would have
to put your own name here.
- The above command would prompt you to add a
new password, and some details about you. You
are not required to fill in all the details. In the end,
it would look something like Fig. 10.
Fig. 12: Installing ECEbuntu.
Fig. 13: Starting ECEbuntu.
8. The installation begins with the screen shown in Fig.
14. It is not necessary to have the system connected
to Internet. However, it is advisable as the underlining
Ubuntu system detects the hardware and may install
additional drivers not part of the current release.
Fig. 10: Adding a new User
- Press ‘Ctrl+Alt+F7’ to go back to the login screen.
Now you would see ‘bilal wajid’ added to the list
of users. Go and login using the password you
entered in the previous step, see Fig. 11.
- Once you login, you could test ECEbuntu without
installing it. If you wish to install it, you could
reboot and proceed to Step 7.
7. To install ECEbuntu reboot using the DVD in the drive.
Choose ‘install’ amongst the options mentioned in
Step 4, see Fig. 12. One would see the ECEbuntu start
Fig. 14: Starting the Installation
8. Next comes selection of the language. Since
ECEbuntu is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS ×64,
it contains support for multiple languages. The
default language for the current version of ECEbuntu
is ‘English’, see Fig. 15. Since ECEbuntu is a
variant of Ubuntu the remainder of the installation
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steps are the same. See Step 2 and beyond at
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/installdesktop-long-term-support for the remainder of the
steps.
Fig. 15: Choosing the Language.
Fig. 17: Emu8051: Emulator and simulator for 8051 microcontrollers.
II. B OOTING FROM THE USB
ECEbuntu can be installed via a bootable usb provided there is enough free space. In order to make a
bootable usb download ECEbuntu from here. Once the .iso
file has been downloaded, a number of software can be
used to make a bootable USB. Examples of some freeware are UNETbootin http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and
Pen drive linux http://www.pendrivelinux.com/. It is recommended that the USB have at least 8GB of free space.
Kindly refer to http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/
create-a-usb-stick-on-windows for further details.
III. RUNNING ECE BUNTU IN PARALLEL WITH W INDOWS
AND MAC
In principle, many operating systems can run in parallel on a single server using a process called virtualization.
Through virtualization all the applications associated to an
operating system, including the OS itself, live in a separate
container called the Virtual Machine (VM). VMs are completely isolated from each other. However, all the hardware,
meaning the CPUs, memory, disk space and networking are
pooled together and delivered dynamically to each VM using
a software called Hypervisor. The Hypervisor helps deliver
each VM the resources it needs on run time, making use
of the hardware resources most efficiently. Therefore, via the
use of virtualization hardware, overhead costs decrease and
since virtualization helps to run the servers at their optimum
capacity, the operating efficiency increases tremendously.
Examples of virtualization software are VMWare
http://www.vmware.com/
and
Parallels
Desktop
http://www.parallels.com/. Examples of some freeware
are
VirtualBox
https://www.virtualbox.org/,
QEMU
http://wiki.qemu.org/Main Page,
Cooperative
Linux
(CoLinux) http://www.colinux.org/, and FreeVPS, which
is
available
at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freevps/.
Genobuntu can be installed on a Ubuntu system that is
running in parallel with Windows and MAC using the above
mentioned software packages.
IV. D ESCRIPTION OF ECE BUNTU S OFTWARE TOOLS
What follows is a description of some of the ECE tools that
come with ECEbuntu. These descriptions are taken from their
respective debian packages.
• Eclipse [1], [2]
Availability:http://www.eclipse.org/
Description: Extensible Tool Platform and Java IDE
The Eclipse Platform is an open and extensible platform
for constructing and running integrated softwaredevelopment tools. The installed package provides the
whole Eclipse SDK that contains Eclipse Platform,
Java development tools and Plug-in Development
Environment. Additional plug-ins useful for C and C++
development are also provided, see Fig. 16.
• Dynamips [3], [4]
Availability:http://www.ipflow.utc.fr/
Description: Cisco 7200/3600/3725/3745/2600/1700
Router Emulator
Dynamips
emulates
Cisco
7200/3600/3725/3745/2600/1700 Routers. One can use
Dynamips to create labs. Dynamips is a complementary
tool to real labs for administrators of Cisco networks.
Furthermore, Dynamips is useful for people wanting to
pass their CCNA/CCNP/CCIE exams.
• Emu8051 [5]
Availability:
http://www.hugovil.com/fr/emu8051/index.html
Description: Emulator and simulator for 8051
microcontrollers
Emu8051 is a simulator/emulator for the Intel 8051
family of microcontrollers. It allows the developers to
simulate 8051 microcontrollers to test their code and
debug it. The program can load Intel HEX files, see
Fig. 17.
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Fig. 16: Eclipse IDE.
• gEDA [7]
Availability:http://geda.seul.org/
Description: GPL EDA – Electronics design software
The gEDA project has produced and continues working
on a full GPL’d suite and toolkit of Electronic
Design Automation tools. These tools are used
for electrical circuit design, schematic capture,
simulation, prototyping, and production. Currently, the
gEDA project offers a mature suite of free software
applications for electronics design, including schematic
capture, attribute management, bill of materials (BOM)
generation, netlisting into over 20 netlist formats,
analog and digital simulation, and printed circuit board
(PCB) layout, see Fig. 19 20.
Fig. 18: Fritzing:
• Fritzing [6]
Availability:http://fritzing.org
Description: Easy-to-use electronic design software
Fritzing is an open source project designed to help one
transition from a prototype to a finished project. Aimed
at users who want to produce or document circuits and
experiments, one starts by building a physical prototype,
then recreating it with the Fritzing’s graphical editor.
From there one can generate a schematic PCB artwork
and PCB production files, see Fig. 18.
• GeoGebra [8], [9]
Availability:http://www.geogebra.org/
Description: Dynamic mathematics software for
education
GeoGebra is a dynamic geometry system. One can
do constructions with points, vectors, segments, lines,
conic sections as well as functions and change them
dynamically afterwards. On the other hand, equations
and coordinates can be entered directly. Support for
many geometric constructions is provided, as well
as support for many elementary calculus-based tools
(derivatives, oscilating circle, etc.), see Fig. 21.
• GNS3 [10], [11]
Availability:http://www.gns3.net/
Description:
Graphical Network Simulator
GNS3 is a graphical network simulator to design
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Fig. 19: gEDA: GUI Electronic Design and Automation tools.
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Fig. 22: GNS3: Graphical Network Simulator
network topologies. One may run network simulations
or configure devices ranging from Cisco routers,
Cisco PIX firewalls, Cisco ASA Firewalls, Cisco IDS
to JunOS routers using Qemu or Pemu. It is using
Dynamips as simulation back-end and an IOS emulator
which allows users to run IOS binary images from
Cisco Systems.
Fig. 20: gEDA: GUI Electronic Design and Automation tools.
• Gwave [12]
Availability:http://gwave.sourceforge.net
Description: waveform viewer eg for spice simulators
Gwave is a tool for viewing analog data, such as the
output of Spice simulations. Gwave can read “raw”
files from Spice2G6, Spice3F5 or Spice, and a tabular
ASCII format suitable for use with GnuCAP. Gwave
can also read several binary and ASCII files written
by commercial spice-type simulators such as hspice,
tspice, and nanosim.
Gwave supports multiple “panels” with multiple
variables displayed in each panel. In addition two
vertical-bar cursors are available for time-difference
measurements. Multiple files can be loaded, for
comparing results of several simulations, see Fig. 23.
• IDLE
Availability:http://www.python.org/
Description: IDE for Python using Tkinter
IDLE is an Integrated Development Environment for
Python. IDLE is written using Tkinter and therefore,
platform-independent.
Fig. 21: GeoGebra: a dynamic geometry system.
• QtOctave [13], [14]
Availability:http://qtoctave.wordpress.com/about/
Description: Qt front-end to Octave
Besides offering an attractive front-end to GNU Octave,
an environment for numerical computation highly
compatible with MATLAB, QtOctave currently also
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Fig. 25: KMplot:
Fig. 23: Gwave: waveform viewer eg for spice simulators.
KDE education module, see Fig. 25.
• Kicad [15], [16]
Availability:http://iut-tice.ujf-grenoble.fr/kicad/
Description: Electronic schematic and PCB design.
Kicad is a suite of programs for making printed circuit
boards. It includes a schematic editor, a PCB layout
tool, support tools and a 3D viewer to display a finished
and fully populated PCB. Kicad is made up of 5 main
components:
-
Fig. 24: QtOctave: an environment for numerical computations.
features matrix data entry and display and some GUI
shortcuts to frequently used Octave functions, see Fig.
24.
• KmPlot
Availability:
https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kdeedu/kmplot
Description: mathematical function plotter for KDE
KmPlot is a powerful mathematical plotter for KDE,
capable of plotting multiple functions simultaneously
and combining them into new functions. Cartesian,
parametric, and differential functions are supported,
as well as functions using polar coordinates. Plots are
printed with high precision at the correct aspect ratio.
KmPlot also provides numerical and visual features
such as filling and calculating the area between the
plot, finding maxima and minima, changing function
parameters dynamically, and plotting derivatives and
integral functions. The installed package is part of the
kicad - project manager
eeschema - schematic editor
pcbnew - PCB editor
gerbview - GERBER viewer
cvpcb - footprint selector for components
• LinSmith
Availability:here
Description: Tool to generate Smith Charts
Smith charts are used in electrical engineering to show
how the complex impedance of a transmission line
varies along its length. Smith Charts simplify the design
of impedance matching networks to match the line to its
load. LinSmith is a Smith Charting program, see Fig. 26.
• MCU 8051
Availability:http://mcu8051ide.sourceforge.net/
Description: Integrated development enviroment for
MCS-51 based microcontrollers
MCU 8051 IDE is a tool for developing programs
in assembly or C languages (with SDCC) for
microcontrollers based on the industrial standard
MCS-51. It consist of an editor with syntax highlight,
auto completion, syntax validation, command line,
compiler with support for macro-instructions, (even
macro in macro), simulator/debugger with small
hardware simulation and a text editor, see Fig. 27.
• NetEmul
Availability:http://netemul.sourceforge.net/
Description: program for simulating computer
networks
SUBMITTED TO IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, FEB. 2015
Fig. 26: linSmith allows definition of multiple load impedances
(at different frequencies), connections in both series and
parallel, addition of discrete (L, C, parallel and series LC,
and transformer) and line components (open and closed stubs,
line segments), storing several load and circuit configuration
separately, permitting several solutions without re-defining
previous ones. Furthermore, the GUI helps provide component
switches from impedance to admittance and a direct view of
results.
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Fig. 28: NetEmul: program for simulating computer networks.
Fig. 29: Oregano: tool for schematical capture of electronic
circuits
NetEmul makes possible to build, configure and verify
a network’s availability. NetEmul allows beginners to
see the principles of operation of computer networks
making it useful for laboratory experiments, see Fig. 28.
• Oregano [17], [18]
Availability:http://oregano.gforge.lug.fi.uba.ar/
Description: tool for schematical capture of
electronic circuits
Oregano is a GNOME application for schematic
capture and printing of electronic circuits. It can
simulate circuits using Gnucap, ng-spice or Berkeley
spice, see Fig. 29.
Fig. 27: MCU 8051 IDE: Integrated development enviroment
for MCS-51 based microcontrollers.
• PCB
Availability:http://pcb.gpleda.org/
Description: printed circuit board (pcb) design
program
SUBMITTED TO IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, FEB. 2015
Fig. 30: PCB:
PCB is an interactive printed circuit board editor for
the X11 window system. PCB includes nest feature,
design rule checking, and can provide industry standard
RS-274-X (Gerber), NC drill, and centroid data (X-Y
data) output for use in the board fabrication and
assembly process. PCB offers high end features such
as an auto-router and trace optimizer which reduces
layout time. The installed package contains the GTK+
user-interface for pcb.
• PuTTY
Availability:http://www.putty.org/
Description: Telnet/SSH client for X
The installed package is the Unix equivalent of the
popular Windows SSH client, PuTTY. It supports
flexible terminal set-ups, multiple X11 authentication
protocols, and additional options which are not available
with the ssh present in xterm.
• RKWard [19], [20]
Availability:http://rkward.sourceforge.net
Description: KDE frontend to the R statistics
language
RKWard aims to become an easy to use, transparent
front-end to R, a powerful system for statistical
computation and graphics. In addition to being a
convenient GUI for the most important statistical
functions, future versions will also provide seamless
integration with an office-suite, see Fig. 31.
• SciLab [21], [22]
Availability:http://www.scilab.org
Description: Scientific software package for numerical computations
Scilab includes hundreds of mathematical functions. It
assumes a high level programming language allowing
access to advanced data structures, 2-D and 3-D graphical functions. Scilab provides multiple functionalities
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Fig. 31: RKWard: a GUI for R statistical language.
including:- tools for Maths, Statistics and Simulation
- for engineering and science applications, like data
analysis.
- 2-D and 3-D Visualization
- graphics functions to visualize, annotate and export
data.
- optimization, which includes algorithms to solve
constrained and unconstrained continuous and discrete optimization problems.
- modelling tools
- control system design and analysis
- signal processing
- application development
- Xcos - Hybrid dynamic systems modeller and
simulator
- Modelling mechanical systems, hydraulic circuits,
etc.
Scilab is a credible alternatives to Matlab and Simulink,
see Fig. 32.
• Spatial Statistics [23]
Availability:
http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/spatial/index.html
Description: GNU R package for spatial statistics
The package provides functions and datasets to support
spatial statistics.
• SPIM
Availability:http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/ larus/spim.html
Description: MIPS R2000/R3000 emulator
SPIM S20 is a software simulator/emulator that runs
assembly language programs for MIPS R2000/R3000
RISC processor. SPIM is a self-contained system for
running programs and contains a debugger and an
interface to the operating system.
• Tex Live
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Fig. 33: Texmaker is a clean, highly configurable LaTeX editor with good hot key support and extensive LaTeX documentation.
LaTeX documentation. Texmaker integrates many
tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in
just one application. It has some nice features such
as syntax highlighting, insertion of 370 mathematical
symbols with only one click, and “structure view” of
the document for easier navigation, see Fig. 33.
• TransCalc
Availability:http://transcalc.sourceforge.net/
Description: Microwave and RF transmission line
calculator
Transcalc is an analysis and synthesis tool for
calculating the electrical and physical properties of
different kinds of RF and microwave transmission lines,
see Fig. 34.
Fig. 32: Scilab
Availability:http://www.tug.org/texlive/
Description: TeX Live: A decent selection of the
TeX Live packages
The TeX Live software distribution offers a complete
TeX system. It encompasses programs for typesetting,
previewing and printing of TeX documents in many
different languages, and a large collection of TeX
macros and font libraries.
• Texmaker
Availability:http://www.xm1math.net/texmaker/
Description: cross-platform LaTeX editor
Texmaker is a clean, highly configurable LaTeX
editor with good hot key support and extensive
• Visolate
Availability:https://sourceforge.net/projects/visolate/
Description: tool for engraving PCBs using CNCs
Visolate reads the gerber files describing printed circuit
boards and converts them into the G-code (RS-274
code) needed to engrave the layout onto a board using
the CNC machine. Precise renditions of the original
layout can be created as well as Voronoi fillings of the
original layout as well as shortening of the toolpath.
A PPENDIX A
S UPPLEMENTARY F ILES
The main manuscripts comes with the following files:
1 Supplementary section can be downloaded from http:
//people.tamu.edu/∼bilalwajidabbas/ecebuntu.html.
SUBMITTED TO IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION, FEB. 2015
Fig. 34: Transcalc is built using the GIMP toolkit (GTK+) for
its GUI interface. For each type of transmission line, using
dialog boxes, one can enter values for the various parameters, and either calculate its electrical properties (analyze), or
use the given electrical requirements to synthesize physical
parameters of the required transmission line.
2 ECEbuntu.iso, about 2.2 Gbs in length, can be downloaded from http://people.tamu.edu/∼bilalwajidabbas/
ecebuntu.html.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge National Science
Foundation Grant: CCF-1318338.
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