The issue:only in the Arduino IDE (v 2.21) I'm experiencing and intermittent screen flicker every few seconds. I run PHP storm and other IDE's, occurs only in this program.
Programmer of 27 years but newborn to Arduino, loving it except for the above, Computer specs:
Linux Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
MSI B560M Pro-VDH
64 GB RAM
i7-11700K @ 3.60Hz x 16
GeForce 8400GS dual head graphics
1TB OS, 2 TB data drive
Dual Benq 24" monitors, 1920 x 1080
Arduino IDE 2.21 (and I have not tried previous versions.)
I know this is an old graphics card but it has always suited my needs, the problem only occurs in the Arduino IDE. I'm also aware it's probably related to this card, and maybe some tweaks to the card drivers/software may address it (haven't gotten that far yet.) Drivers and firmware are as current as they can be.
The effect is that the screen slightly scrambles for a flash and rights itself again, I looked in settings and don't see anywhere to disable graphics acceleration or any settings related to monitor graphics. Not seeing anything that applies in the Github issues.
I'm not looking for a slam dunk solution (unless someone has one,) I'm hoping I can get some insight as to how this IDE accesses system resources, or maybe there is a startup setting I can tweak to disable hardware acceleration, or even some pointers as to where I can begin looking.
Otherwise I'm having a blast playing with this stuff and have some real world projects I'm working toward. Any other Linux users out there that might have ideas?
Thank you for that! No . . . I am starting with the Elegoo Super Starter kit and used the install instructions provided on the CD, which basically is a manual install moving the files to /usr/share/arduino_ide_2.2.1_Linux_64bit/ . I should have been suspicious when there was no install.sh as indicated in the instructions, but executing arduino-ide allowed it to run.
If this is the generally accepted install method maybe I should just re-install it using the AppImage, I'm only a few days in.
install.sh was present in the Arduino IDE 1.x package, but this file is not present in the Arduino IDE 2.x package.
Ok, that is fine. Just add the --disable-gpu flag to the invocation:
arduino-ide --disable-gpu
The AppImage package is recommended simply because we feel that it is slightly more user friendly since you can start Arduino IDE by double clicking on the AppImage file (once you configure the executable file attribute) rather than having to start the IDE from the terminal as is the case with the ZIP package, but the ZIP package is also fully officially supported and will work just fine (I actually use the ZIP package personally because it is better suited for the very advanced use case where you might want access to the individual files of the application package).
So if you are happy with your current installation of Arduino IDE, you shouldn't feel any obligation to switch to the AppImage.
I should add that there is one other very significant advantage to using the AppImage package: this package allows you to use the IDE's auto update feature to most easily update to new versions of Arduino IDE when they are released:
Thank you, already re-installed and the problem appears to have gone away! I'll probably write a bash later or something so I can just launch it from the task bar. It's definitely the problem, without the arg it flickers, with it, gone. Now that I think about it, could have done the same with the existing install.
Edit: also like how it logs when launched from the command line, will probably be helpful at some point.
Yeah, the information printed to the terminal is invaluable in cases where you need to troubleshoot some misbehavior of Arduino IDE. I frequently instruct people to check these logs while providing support for specific problems here on the forum.
Arduino IDE does also automatically store these logs in files even when you didn't start it from the command line. However, I personally prefer to use the terminal approach for getting logs because it allows me to see the log output in real time so that I can easily correlate it with the actions I am performing in the IDE.