BeeSoft User's Guide and Reference

2.2 The BeeSoft File System

All BeeSoft software and associated files are pre-installed by RWI, Inc., in a directory tree called ~bee. Here are some important navigation hints:

cd    or    cd ~    takes you to your home directory, that is, the directory you’re presently logged into (currently demo).
cd ~bee    takes you to bee’s home directory.
cd ~/bee    takes you to the bee directory within your current home directory (at the moment, it will take you to demo/bee) 

We’ll briefly tour the ~bee tree to find out what’s there and how you’ll use these tools and resources. Within the directory ~bee, there are several pre-installed subdirectories:

    ~bee/bin: contains all BeeSoft programs in executable format

    ~bee/doc: includes all RWI, Inc., supplied documentation in both
      PostScript™ and HTML formats 

    ~bee/etc: contains all parameter files (specifying such parameters as
      Robot velocity, and many others) for the BeeSoft Mapper™, the
      BeeSoft Planner™, and other BeeSoft subsystems 

    ~bee/include: defines resources and interfaces to BeeSoft user libraries.

    ~bee/lib: these are robot-specific libraries that contain modules to be
      compiled into user programs to access robot-specific resources  

    ~bee/src: all BeeSoft source files, including examples of all parameter
      files (in the subdirectory /beeExamples). 

Any upgrade or new release of the BeeSoft software package will comprise only bee/src and bee/doc. The contents of all the other subdirectories are compiled or generated from these two. In addition, there are additional versions of /lib and /bin to support different machine architectures and operating systems in use at some customer sites. These three alternative versions currently exist:

/bin, /lib - for the Linux operating system

/bin_sun, /lib_sun - for the Sun/OS operating system (up to version 4.x)

/bin_solaris, /lib_solaris - for the Sun/Solaris operating system (Sun OS 5 and up)

Note: RWI, Inc. provides official support for use of BeeSoft under the Linux operating system only.

Now that you know where everything is, the next step is to start finding out how to use some of these tools. As we’ve seen, all the executable program files are located in ~bee/bin. Let’s go there now and take a look around. Type:

 cd ~bee/bin
 ls 

Here, you’ll see executables for communications software, robot control and sensing, the BeeSoft Mapper™, the BeeSoft Planner™ and the BeeSoft Simulator™.