Linux + Arduino Educational build

Projects General Guidance
1

I have no idea if this is in the right forum so please feel free to move it if it isn't.

I'm a high school educator in Canada and am in need of some guidance.

In February I am running a session on Arduino and basic electronics, which is something that I use in my Robotics classes. What I need is a way to create an image of Linux with Arduino pre-installed to mount on a USB stick to boot from.

Because I am running this across school boards, I can't assume that I will have people with their own computers with Arduino on it before the session so I will need to provide the appropriate program.

So my question is, is there a way(or does this already exist) to create a Linux build with Arduino already installed so that I can mount it to a USB drive and run my computers from there?

2

The easiest way is to install Arduino on an existing distro, and then make a disk image. Write the image to the USB drives.

3

If you want to make a bootable USB stick I suggest you look at Puppy Linux.

I am using TahrPup 6 (scroll down) to write this - although mine is installed to my hard drive. It is based on Ubuntu and can install software from the regular Ubuntu repositories.

...R

4

Thanks for the replies.

Would installing PuppyLinux, adding the Arduino IDE and then making the disc image be best? Currently I'm using Ubuntu for this trick but I've never changed the base image.

Will I run into issues with drivers when trying to run an Arduino through this?

Thanks for the replies.

5

MDWay:
Will I run into issues with drivers when trying to run an Arduino through this?

I would not expect so.

How many identical USB sticks do you want?

I would be inclined to set up Puppy Liniux on a USB stick and then add whatever extra software you need to it. When all that is working I would just clone that USB stick to any others that you need.

...R