Today my university received some long awaited Arduino Mega 2560s. I went to test it, and after a lot of struggle and Google searches, I made it work. However, it only works if I run the IDE as root. If I run the IDE normally, Tools > Serial Port is greyed out. Someone suggested to add my user to the UUCP group. I did that, and nothing changed. Someone also suggested to add my user to the LOCK and DIALOUT groups, but I don't have such groups.
I'm using up to date Debian Squeeze and IDE 1.0.4, which I downloaded from the website and have to navigate to the executable to run. I followed the instructions on the wiki to make it run.
I'm not familiar with Squeezy and it's been a while since I fiddled with devices in Linux but a couple of things to try:
Which group has permissions on the device (/dev/ttyACM0)?
If you don't have a dialout group it must be some other group. Add your user account to that group.
Or is it only root that has permissions on the device?
Perhaps you can use udev rules to assign permissions to another group that your user is a member of. Maybe the users group?
Do you have some version of the Arduino IDE in the software repository of your Linux release?
If so, you can try installing that first even if it's not the latest version. It might take care of permissions and dependencies for you.
If that version works then you can try your downloaded version again and see if something has been solved.
GuiRitter,
I am using Squeezy and Arduino 1.0.1, which last I checked was the latest apt-get repository, on an Raspberry Pi. Works well with a Uno, through USB or or an FTDI Friend, but I cant get it to upload to ATTiny processors thru a USBTiny ISP. Same sketches work fine under Windows.
I didn't have to set any special permissions to use the USB port.
Did you just download and unpack the 1.0.4, or get the source code and compile it?
TomJ