Category: Arduino

a problem with the arduino ide 2.0 rc5

whbeebe

I have been using the Arduino IDE 1.x since I first came across it back in 2013, so nearly 9 years now. In all that time it’s done yeoman work as a tool for writing software for embedded devices in C and C++ for both Arduino and Adafruit devices. I might be a big fan of Python, and by extension, Micro Python and Circuit Python, but there’s no denying that when critical timing counts and/or you’re limited in memory and storage resources that the Arduino IDE and C/C++ give you much finer control towards implementing an embedded solution. I was therefore greatly anticipating the final release of Arduino IDE 2.

Arduino IDE 2 ( https://www.arduino.cc/en/software ) is a re-write of Arduino IDE 1 using the Theia Platform ( https://theia-ide.org/ ). The usage of Theia brings the Arduino IDE 2 interface up to date with its contemporaries, such as Visual Studio Code. While the main interface is great to work with, it’s some of the subfunctions that are questionable, such as Preferences | Additional Boards Manager URLS.

The current release of Arduino IDE 2 is at release candidate 5. It’s this release with which I have a problem. When I try to add new URLs to point at board support repos, the text box into which those URLs can be edited is a very narrow line that will not expand. I need this feature to work in order to try and use the Arduino IDE 2 to help write software for the latest ESP32 boards, such as the ESP32-S3 and ESP32-C3. This is a problem since RC2 was released, and has been a problem with each release candidate since.

It wasn’t a problem with the beta releases. This is how the dialog should look, using the last beta in the series, beta 12. As you can see the text box is open, and I have at least three separate URLs in the text box.

Another issue that has been in all the releases I’ve used, both beta and release candidate, is the placement of the ‘OK’ and ‘Cancel’ buttons. On the Preferences dialog it’s one way, while on the Additional Boards Manager URLs dialog it’s the opposite. I don’t care what order you choose, but the order should be consistent. It’s not a bug like the dialog text box, but it is just downright sloppy.

I have tried to report this to the developers, but it appears my reporting isn’t getting through. I hope I’m wrong and that this issue is fixed before the final release.

raspberry pi 4b 2gb – more working observations

whbeebe
Arduino IDE configured to communicate with Circuit Playground Express

Working with the Raspberry Pi 4B continues. I installed the Arduino IDE version 1.8.9 (https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software) and was able to quickly start it and have it working with a Circuit Playground Express. I found a sample C++ program on GitHub (https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_CircuitPlayground/tree/master/examples/FidgetSpinner) and created a simple project, compiling it, but not uploading it. That will come later. I just wanted to check out the basic installation to see if it worked up to a point, and it all does. My only comment is that when you download the IDE that you choose the ARM 32-bit version. It’s a standard tar file, no compression. Once untarred, then execute install.sh. It will not only place everything where it needs to be, but set up permissions, groups, and add a menu entry under Programming.

The IDE seems fully functional. One aspect of using the IDE natively on the RPi 4B with 2GB is that compiles are noticeably slower than they are on my MacBook Pro. But that’s to be expected, and the time taken is not excessive. Just noticeable.

During this period of testing I’ve also managed to force Raspbian to hit the swap space. Unlike the 1GB RPi 4B, the 2GB version’s use of swap is one to two orders less than the 1GB version with the same application load. Right now I’m seeing 4.5MB out of 2GB of swap being used, or essentially next to nothing.

Finally, I installed two more software packages, Swift for ARM and PowerShell Version 7 Preview 2 for ARM.

In order to install Swift on Raspbian Buster, you neeed to add a reference to the repo, then install Swift from that repo. Those steps are:

curl -s https://packagecloud.io/install/repositories/swift-arm/release/script.deb.sh | sudo bashsudo apt install swift5=5.0.2-v0.4

Once installed you can run this basic test:

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ swiftc --versionSwift version 5.0.2 (swift-5.0.2-RELEASE)Target: armv6-unknown-linux-gnueabihfpi@raspberrypi:~ $

You can read about Swift ARM here: https://swift-arm.com/
Note that you should check to see what the current version of Swift ARM is when you install. I chose 5.0.2-v0.4 because that was what was published in the announcement on the web site.

PowerShell Core for Raspbian Buster is available as a regular tar file here: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases

Once downloaded, create a directory on your login home. In my case I simply created ~/powershell. Step into it and untar the newly downloaded archive into the newly created directory. Once untarred simply run pwsh. For example:

pi@raspberrypi:~/powershell $ ./pwsh PowerShell 7.0.0-preview.2Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.https://aka.ms/powershellType 'help' to get help.PS /home/pi/powershell> $PSVersionTableName   Value----   -----PSVersion  7.0.0-preview.2PSEdition  CoreGitCommitId7.0.0-preview.2OS Linux 4.19.58-v7l+ #1245 SMP Fri Jul 12 17:31:45 BST 2019Platform   UnixPSCompatibleVersions   {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}PSRemotingProtocolVersion  2.3SerializationVersion   1.1.0.1WSManStackVersion  3.0PS /home/pi/powershell>

And that’s about it.

One more thing. The Flirc case runs warm, but not excessively so. CPU temperatures seem to run between 45°C and 50°C. I’m still working on a 40-pin ribbon cable connector that will easily fit inside the case over the GPIO header.