The original Arduino IDE had a fairly simple and comprehensive installer, which added an Icon to the menu and it was ready to go.
Does anyone know why we have no proper installer for Linux?
We supposed to go forward, not backwards.
It is very difficult for the beginners to have the same outcome, when installing IDE 2.
This is specially difficult for children using Ubuntu, no icons are added to the menu.
Is someone, working on this?
We are spending loads of money on genuine Arduino boards, and yet we have to still use IDE 1.8 to make the whole process easier for kids who are new to this.
@ptillisch thank you, I will monitor this.
It seems that it takes them long time to implement this, as it was first mentioned in a different post 20th June 2020.
I would think that there is many Linux users using Arduino to implement this, this all palaver with selling the boards and asking customers to write their own improvements to the software as a volunteer.
But anyways, it is what it is.
Perhaps, but keep in mind that that Arduino IDE is free open source software. You have every right to expect to receive a board when you pay for a board, but the IDE is free in every sense of the word.
It is quite reasonable (but of course optional) to make volunteer code contributions to the free open source software that benefits us.
I will take a SWAG and say Go to the menu and selected programming, then selected the IDE and right clicked on it, There you can add it to the panel and or the desktop (separate choices).
@gilshultz It's not a big issue for me, it's an issue for younger users which are trying to learn Arduino on Linux platform.
The way I do it is:
Decompress Arduino IDE 2
2.Copy Arduino IDE 2 directory to /opt
Created new desktop file in /usr/share/applications/
here is the code
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Arduino IDE 2
GenericName=Arduino IDE 2
Comment=Open-source electronics prototyping platform version 2
Exec="/opt/arduino-ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit/arduino-ide"
Icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/arduino-ide-2
Terminal=false
Categories=Development;IDE;Electronics;
MimeType=text/x-arduino;
Keywords=embedded electronics;electronics;avr;microcontroller;
StartupWMClass=processing-app-Base
Copy NEW Arduino icon from
/opt/arduino-ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit/resources/app/resources/icons
to
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/512x512/apps/
Icon is called 512x512.png I rename it to arduino-ide-2.png
Log out / Log in and it's all done.
But my point is, I can do it all easy, installer or AppImage makes no difference to me, but young kids or people who are not familiar with Linux rely on provided software.
Indeed its open source to reduce the cost of making it, it benefits manufacturer. If there would be no software, no one would buy it except few geeks like me and you guys.
Thank you for this post!
I am currently running 1.8.13 and I noticed the new version package does not contain the install.h file.
I have a question on the steps you suggest.
If one follows those steps - does one end up with two IDE installations?
Personally - I'm pretty happy with the functionality of the version I currently have - and I'm unsure as to whether any new features in version 2.2 will be beneficial enough for me to worry about updating to it.
I would do system backup before I went forward with it.
But there is always some risk that things can go from better to worse.
So if version 2.2 is not that big a deal - I'll just continue to enjoy the IDE as it currently is.
I use Mint with 1.8.18 and have no plans on changing in the near future. I actually have several IDE installations on my Mint computer but no problems with them interacting with each other.
I recommend just giving it a try. The instructions provided by @bbs64 are completely optional. They make the IDE more convenient to access, but that won't be a concern when you are giving it a trial usage.
The instructions for a basic installation of the IDE are provided here:
The installation procedure described on that page won't impact your Arduino IDE 1.x installation in any way. If you decide Arduino IDE 2.x is not for you, you can simply delete the .AppImage file and go back to using Arduino IDE 1.x again.
@got_arduino1 apology for the late reply, but I wasn't well for last few days.
Indeed you will end up with two separate installations of Arduino IDE.
Which in my case is very handy because I work mostly in ver 1.8, but I'm aware that version 2.x will improve at some point and will be more usable.
The other reason is that, I'm very annoyed that ver 2.x connects to the internet without asking.
This is a big No No for me, if you work in secure environment you don't want any app calling home without your knowledge.
I have heard that people will be forking ver 2.x and making more privatacy oriented app.
In the mean time I cannot recommend version 1.8 highly enough, it's stable, fast and it doesn't cause any privacy concerns.
Best Regards,
Peter
Thank you very much for this post!!
I also very much like 1.8 and after your very informative post - I think I'll dig around a little more to gather up more info before I do anything.
I'm currently working on transitioning to a stand-alone bread-board - platform - starting with the Atmega328 - so that I can use it as a stand-alone MCU.
Version 1.8 of the IDE has all of the bells and whistles I need for that.
So I'm happy as pie with it! :-]
I loaded version 2 on Linux Mint and it is indeed a poor install. It does not add links for the tool bar or screen. I have to go to the directory where it is stored and click on that. Also it did not launch when an application I saved from the example blink. If I launched the IDE then moved the sketch into it it worked. It did not allow me to force an external editor but it have some cuite features. I will stay with the much more friendly 1.18.
It was a clean install, I formatted a new SSD and installed the latest stable version of Linux Mint.
