Download
If you haven’t yet, you’ll need to download the necessary version of gSender for your operating system. Downloads for primary systems as well as all other available builds are available on the main gSender page: https://sienci.com/gsender/
If you’ve downloaded the more experimental ‘gSender Edge’, then after you install and read through the generic gSender documentation, see the page on Edge to see what features it uniquely offers and how to use them: https://resources.sienci.com/view/gs-edge-features/
Windows Install
You may run into a security warning from your computer when you download the .EXE file. This can be bypassed by selecting “See more.” You can choose to keep the download, so that it can continue to run.
Microsoft Edge Users: If you are having difficulties downloading gSender when using Microsoft Edge, follow the instructions here or watch the video here.
Once you’ve downloaded the EXE file, double-click to run it. gSender isn’t yet set up to pass security checks so you’ll have to allow it to run manually by clicking ‘More Info’ and then clicking ‘Run anyway’. If you don’t feel that you can trust gSender, then no pressure to use it; we’ll have this setup later on.
If the “More info” option isn’t available, it could be that Windows is fully blocking installation. This can be fixed by going to “App & browser control” and switching “Check app and files” to “Warn” or “Off” just for the installation of gSender. You can always turn it back on afterwards.
With permission to run, you should be met with a license agreement. gSender is provided “as is” which means there’s no expectation that it’ll run your CNC perfectly – especially as it’s still in very active development. We want you to understand this before moving forward. If you agree, you’ll be able to choose your install options from there (who to install for and where) and then begin installing.
Install completion will be indicated by a completion screen. If the ‘Run gSender’ box is checked off you should be able to click ‘Finish’ and be greeted with a splash screen followed by the full program. If not, you can always open the program manually after install.
Mac Install
Once you’ve downloaded the DMG file, double-click to run it. A window will popup that will look like the one below. Click and drag the gSender app and let go the applications folder to save it to your Mac.
Navigate to your applications folder on your Mac and the gSender program should be there and ready for use.
If you’re having issues installing gSender on your Mac, follow these instructions to open blocked apps.
gSender Updates
Most systems are set up so that each time gSender has a new update available, there will be a notification on the program that allows you to quickly download the latest version. If you’re not receiving these update notifiers, your system is not yet supported but you should still be able to download the newest version manually and install it over-top of the old version.
Pi Install
Before considering a Pi setup, we’ll give you some advanced notice that supporting the wide variety of hardware and software configurations for Pi is always a losing battle. This means that though we’ve tried our best to cover some of the more common setups, we’d still recommend you have some familiarity with Linux if you continue with this installation since our support won’t be able to cover the many specific problems of various Pi builds. gSender and gSender Edge are also both rapidly evolving on Pi so take this install information with a grain of salt.
Starting notes:
- We provide 3 different variations of Pi binary – .AppImage, .deb, and .rem. We strongly encourage using the AppImage since it’s self contained and won’t run into dependency/install issues
- Pi versions are all indicated by the “armv7l” tag in the executable name. This is specific to 32bit ARM architecture
- Supported PI OS (Raspbian/Pi OS):
- Buster 32bit or earlier
- Bullseye (the latest release) is both 64bit and lacking libraries that Electron requires to run so is not currently supported
- To determine which OS you’re running, enter a terminal and type “cat /etc/os-release”. The name and pretty name should verify your OS and version
For most simple Pi setups, you’ll want to:
- Download the AppImage
- Right click and go to the permissions tab
- Make sure “executable” permission is set on the file
- Run the program
Upon running, you may get an initial error window filled with lots of text. This is just a prompt from the updater which is attempting to find a new version of the program. You should be able to click through it and access gSender as normal.
Default Pi credentials:
User: pi Password: root
These are needed when performing ‘sudo’ super user access, a type of administrator access needed to alter system-specific things. Once you’re set up with your Pi we recommend creating a new user account with different credentials as a security precaution, especially if you’re running gSender in remote mode or connecting your Pi to the internet. If these credentials don’t work for you then either check with your manufacturer or congratulations you’ve already created your own account and changed the default password 😉
Error log location:
All application logs can be found in “~/.config/gSender/logs” and can be shared for any app-specific problems.
Common Issues
Sizing for Smaller Screens
gSender can size responsively but only to a minimum point. Because of this, some Pi users might find gSender isn’t fitting their screen properly. This can be accommodated on most Pis by:
- Click the Pi icon on the top right
- Preferences -> Screen configuration -> Configure -> Screens
- Click HDMI-1 (or whichever screen that is connected to the Pi), then you’ll find you can select your Resolution
- We’d suggest you choose a minimum resolution of 1280×1024. Once chosen, you should be able to verify if this fix has worked for you or you can go back and continue to tweak it as needed.
This should allow gSender to show on your screen fully without it being cut off.
Visualizer is blank
This is most likely related to webGL not being enabled. You can check inside Chromium/Chrome by visiting https://webglreport.com/ and checking that both WebGL 1 and WebGL 2 have the green ‘supported’ banner. If these aren’t present, then to enable webGL:
- Inside Chrome/Chromium, navigate to chrome://settings
- In the ‘System’ section, ensure the “Use hardware acceleration when available” checkbox is checked
- Relaunch Chrome for the changes to take effect then go to chrome://flags
- Ensure that “Disable WebGL” is not activated
- Relaunch Chrome for the changes to take effect and now these updated settings should be used by gSender’s Electron builder
Can’t open the port to connect
Make sure your user is part of the dialout group. To add your account to this group, go to a terminal and type “sudo usermod -a -G dialout <user>” (replacing “<user>” with your username). Restart after this change and try again.