I've ordered a nice USBtinyISP from adafruit and was wondering if I could use the wonderful Arduino programming software by burning the bootloader and then using another programmer like AVRdude to burn the .HEX files that the Arudino software made to the ATmega168. I figure that by now, its common, but would appreciate if someone would let me know as to how they did it.
Yes, new member and new to microcontrollers, incase you didn't notice
EDIT: I guess what I'm really trying to ask is if I can burn the files that the arduino software makes using something other than an arduino board? If so, how would I be able to do it? Any help and/or comments appreciated.
Well, the Arduino IDE outputs a normal .hex file. If you go to Sketch -> Show Sketch Folder, you can see .hex files in there. If you program these .hex files, you should be able to use the Arduino IDE to write and compile your programs, then the tinyISP and avrdude to program them to your microcontroller. No bootloader necessary.
With a programmer and a new boards.txt entry, you can burn the sketch directly with the IDE. I don't know the details for the tinyISP, but I use these for my avrispmkII:
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.name=AVRISPmkII to 8MHz ATmega48
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.upload.protocol=stk500v2
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.upload.maximum_size=4096
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.upload.using=avrispmkii
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.build.mcu=atmega48
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.build.f_cpu=8000000L
AVRISPmkII-48-8MHz.build.core=arduino
##############################################################
AVRISPmkII-168.name=AVRISPmkII to ATmega168
AVRISPmkII-168.upload.protocol=stk500v2
AVRISPmkII-168.upload.maximum_size=16384
AVRISPmkII-168.upload.using=avrispmkii
AVRISPmkII-168.build.mcu=atmega168
AVRISPmkII-168.build.f_cpu=16000000L
AVRISPmkII-168.build.core=arduino
