Snap package for Arduino IDE

[Michael Hall]

Hello everyone,

It was recently pointed out on an Ubuntu mailing list that the Arduino IDE package in the archives is out of date (1.0.5) and so I began working on making a snap package of 1.6.9 and have it mostly working. I would like to contribute the snap packaging configs back to upstream so that others can easily build it, and so that upstream can put an official package in the snap store.

Can somebody point me in the right direction for where I should submit my code? It's very small, and uses the binary tarball release instead of building from source.

Thanks for your help.

[Michael Hall]

I now have 1.6.10 packaged and in the snap store. Anybody on Ubuntu or another distro with snapd installed can run "snap install --devmode arduino-mhall119" to install it.

The reason it's arduino-mhall119 and not just arduino is because I didn't want to claim the official name for myself, I'd rather that upstream uses it.

The --devmode is required for now in order to access the device over USB. There is a 'serial-port' plug that will allow this without needing devmode, but it's not currently working. Once it is you will be able to install without --devmode and everything will work.

[Peter Feerick]

As a side note, since you mentioned that the ide package for Ubuntu is out of date (as are all distros AFAIK), for Ubuntu, you can use their 'ubuntu-make' tool also (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-make) to install the latest version of the IDE. Once you've installed umake, it seems to always install (and seems to be able to update in place also) the latest Arduino IDE version with 'umake ide arduino'. Just another alternative that seems pretty handy once you know it's there :)

Peter Feerick
BIT, BLDes CQU

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[Andrew Kroll]

My 2 cents.

Note my opinion here may be a bit biased, because I don't use Ubuntu, but here is some wise advice.

I have multiple installations.
in my experience with IDE I have found that the following can happen with ANY IDE.

In the event something breaks, nothing has changed, I just remove the offending install.
If I have a package that doesn't install the "normal" way, for example PJRC is the notable offender here. I wish Paul would fix this and make life easier. There are less disruptive ways to do this.
Last is if I purposely modify something on my own for my own use, which is rare, but happens.

So, I suggest that it does not upgrade in-place, but rather update in parallel, in a new directory, with a separate icon for each version.
Many other IDE packages operate this way, most notably Netbeans. I have 3 different versions of Netbeans installed, each with a different capabilities. Sometimes a plugin isn't updated on Netbeans, and you get stuck. I totally dislike eclipse and do not use it, but I assume the same happens there too. I would be surprised if it didn't.

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Visit my github for awesome Arduino code @ https://github.com/xxxajk

[Peter Feerick]

If you makes you feel any better Andrew... below (or attached depending on how it survies the mailing list) is a pic of part of my 'programming' folder... and these are the versions of the IDE that have survived multiple cullings. Hm... I think it is probably time to put most of 1.6.x to rest now... :-O

I tried the install-able version once, and then reverted to the zip installs as I prefer side by side installs for compatibility. Hence why I also like the 'portable' mode that recent (1.5.x+?) versions have offered, for a complete self-contained package if needed to verify some weird or unexpected new behaviour. 

So you're not alone! I find the umake option on Ubuntu handy as another way to get the latest version without having to to think, but as soon as I need multiple versions, I'd be back to side-by-side 'installs'. 

Peter Feerick
BIT, BLDes CQU