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Arduino IDE on 64bit openSUSE

Jeffery — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:34:12 +0000

Arduino is a tool for making computers that can sense and control more of the physical world than your desktop computer. It’s an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple microcontroller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Unfortunately the serial port communication driver (RXTX) which comes with the arduino download is not 64 bit compatible. I will describe here how I successfully compiled & installed the driver to get the Arduino IDE running on a 64 bit openSUSE installation. Most of the instructions should be pretty straight forward to be replicated on an other rpm based distribution. For ubuntu/debain based distributions, you can find the instructions provided by Tero Karvinen useful.

Packages Required for Arduino IDE

The following packages are required to run the Arduino IDE:

java-1_5_0-sun
cross-avr-gcc
cross-avr-binutils
avr-libc

Linux USB Serial Converter Driver

Besides the above software, you will also need a compatible kernel. This means version 2.6.x or at least 2.4.30. For example, it needs USB serial support with the FTDI driver. After connecting an Arduino board to your computer via an AB USB cable, it should load the ftdi modules automatically. Ensure ftdi_sio and usbserial modules are loaded by executing:

lsmod | grep ftdi

It should return output similar to whats shown below:

ftdi_sio               54280  0
usbserial              52688  1 ftdi_sio
usbcore               156456  6 ftdi_sio,usbserial,usbhid,ohci_hcd,ehci_hcd

If not, as root, run:

modprobe ftdi_sio

If there are no errors from the above command, then the module is loaded successfully.

System Requirements

The Arduino IDE is java based and RXTX [2] is a native java library providing serial and parallel communication for the Java Development Toolkit. The RXTX lib uses lock files by default. So Before you use lock files you need to do one of two things:

Be the root or uucp user on your machine whenever you use rxtx
Or add the specific user that needs to use rxtx to the group uucp. (preferred)

Add your user account to the uucp group by going to yast2 > Security and Users > User Management. Once you have added yourself to the group, you will need to restart your session to make it affective. Once you are in the new session, verify that your account belongs to the uucp group by executing “groups” on the shell. It should give return you a list of groups your account belongs to.

Packages required for building rxtx-java

autoconf
automake
libtool
gnu make
gcc
jdk > 1.3 or java-1_5_0-sun-devel
checkinstall (optional)

After installing the necessary libraries, you can download and start building the library with the following commands:

wget http://rxtx.qbang.org/pub/rxtx/rxtx-2.1-7r2.zip

unzip rxtx-2.1-7r2.zip

cd rxtx-2.1-7r2

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib64/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/

./configure

make

Once the libraries are built, you can install them by following either one of the following two methods:

Build an RPM package with the help of checkinstall
(preferred)
Copy the libs to the arduino libs folder.

If you are opting for the checkinstall method, I suggest to name the package rxtx-java. You can then install the package using normal rpm commands. Once you have done that, you need to determine the path to the libraries. Execute the following to obtain the Path to the rxtx libraries:

rpm -ql librxtx-java | grep RXTXcomm.jar
/usr/java/jdk1.5.0_06/jre/lib/ext/RXTXcomm.jar

We will now remember to add the path (‘/usr/java/jdk1.5.0_06/jre/’) to the arduino bootstrap script.

To install the libraries the second way, you can copy the compiled RXTXcomm.jar and librxtxSerial.so files to the arduino lib directory. The libs are built and placed into “x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/.libs/” folder while the jar file should be in the same folder you are in.

Setting up the Arduino IDE

Download and untar the Arduino IDE from Arduino Software page

wget http://www.arduino.cc/files/arduino-0010-linux.tgz && \
tar -xvzf arduino-0010-linux.tgz

In the arduino/tools directory, make symlinks:

cd arduino-0010/hardware/tools

 ln -s /opt/cross/bin/avr-gcc avr-gcc && \
ln -s /opt/cross/bin/avr-g++ avr-g++ && \
ln -s /opt/cross/bin/avr-objcopy avr-objcopy && \
ln -s /opt/cross/bin/avr-objdump avr-objdump && \
ln -s /opt/cross/bin/avr-size avr-size

Copy the compiled RxTx-java libray into the arduino-0010/lib folder. Before doing so rename the existing libraries.

cd ../../lib/

mv librxtxSerial.so librxtxSerial.so.DISABLED

mv RXTXcomm.jar RXTXcomm.jar.DISABLED

Now copy the freshly compiled rxtx libraries into this folder

cp ../../rxtx-2.1-7r2/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/.libs/librxtxSerial.so .

cp ../../rxtx-2.1-7r2/RXTXcomm.jar .

Once you have copied the library and jar file, you are ready to execute the arduino bootstrap script to launch the Arduino IDE.

./arduino
Experimental:  JNI_OnLoad called.
Stable Library
=========================================
Native lib Version = RXTX-2.1-7
Java lib Version   = RXTX-2.1-7

The Arduino IDE

Resources

http://www.arduino.cc
http://www.rxtx.org
http://ftdi-usb-sio.sourceforge.net/
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/3rdPartyDrivers.htm
serproxy: http://www.lspace.nildram.co.uk/freeware.html
ser2net: http://ser2net.sourceforge.net
Java Comm Serial API How-To for Linux: http://wass.homelinux.net/howtos/Comm_How-To.shtml

openSUSE “Packaging Day II”

Jeffery — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:45:27 +0000

Ever had problems finding a package for your favorite application for your favorite distro? Are you an application developer or project contributor, and want to learn how to provide binary packages for all the popular distros (including openSUSE) automatically?

Using the openSUSE Build Service, you can provide software packages for most popular Linux distros using one single service. Rather than maintaining separate systems to build packages, you can take advantage of the openSUSE Build Service and let it do most of the work.

To learn how to leverage the build service, join the openSUSE community on April 4th and 5th on IRC to hone your package building skills. The Packaging Days II event will be held on Freenode at #opensuse-buildservice. Community members will be standing by to provide support and answer questions about using the build service and creating packages.

Find out more about the Packaging Days II event at: http://en.opensuse.org/Packaging/Packaging_Day

qBittorrent v1.0.0 Release

Jeffery — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 00:32:33 +0000

qBittorrent is a Bittorrent client using C++ / libtorrent and a Qt4 Graphical User Interface. Its been under heavy development for a full year now and finally its maturing into one of the best torrent clients out there. I am the Project Consultant + Packager of the application for my distro of choice: openSUSE. Packages for other distributions are available (qBittorrent Downloads) and a Windows port is coming soon.

Packages for openSUSE 10.2 and 10.3 can be obtained from my openSUSE build farm account at : home:jefferyfernandez. If you encounter any bugs in the package or the application itself, please report them at: qBittorrent Bug-tracker. Happy torrenting

qBittorrent Home: http://www.qbittorrent.org

Could not find the OpenSUSE installation CD

Jeffery — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:38:04 +0000

If you have a Core 2 Duo/Quad capable motherboard and are getting an error message about the OpenSUSE installer not being able to find the CD/DVD after you have already booted from it, the problem is likely with your IDE controller. In some modern motherboards, the parallel ATA controller has been taken out of the chipset and moved to a third-party drive controller. That third party driver is produced by JMicron, and this problem most famously occurs in the Asus P5B motherboard, though other brands and models can be affected as well. In my case it was the Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 board.

Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode

First, it will help to do a quick work around in your BIOS. Press the Del, F1, or F2 key to get into your system BIOS just after powering it on. Proceed to the “Integrated Peripherals” section. Under “Onboard SATA/IDE Ctrl Mode”, set it to AHCI mode, then save and exit the BIOS setup utility. The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is an interface specification that allows the storage driver to enable advanced Serial ATA features such as Native Command Queuing and hot plug. Here is a list of Intel chipsets that support AHCI.

Load the Kernel module drivers

Now boot from the openSUSE CD 1 or DVD. You’ll should still get the same message, but now you’re set to work around it:

Press Enter to get past the error message, then choose your language in the following screen. That will bring you to the main menu.
Use the down arrow key to select the Kernel Modules option and press Enter.
In the next screen press Enter again to select the default option for IDE/RAID/SCSI Modules.
In the long list that follows, find both the JMicron and the Generic IDE drivers, select them, press Enter, then press Enter again when you’re asked for special options to pass to them. You will have to do this twice, one time for each driver.
When you return to the kernel module screen, use the Tab or arrow keys to select Back, and press Enter.That should put you back into the Main Menu.
Now select the option for Start Installation or System and press Enter, then select Start Installation or Update and press Enter.
And lastly select the CD-ROM as the source and press Enter. The normal graphical installation procedure should now commence.

If the above does not work, write down the installation source mirror addresses from the openSUSE website and use it to install openSUSE over FTP. The only difference in the procedure will be to change the above instructions to select FTP instead of CD-ROM as the source. Good-luck!

WARNING. If you are a Windows user, you can’t just jump into the BIOS and enable AHCI. It changes the way the bus communicates and it will cause a “Blue Screen of Death”. You’ll need to reinstall if you want to use AHCI

Software Tools for the Freedom lovers

Jeffery — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 13:44:28 +0000

Over the years of being a Linux user, I must admit that I will never turn back to being a Windows user again. If I want to do get something done on my favorite Linux distribution, there is a tool or tools already out there to help me with it. Almost every week I discover some new software tool to play with, something which helps improve my everyday experience… not always ;o)

There are lots of people out there writing software these days. In the olden days software was mostly written for Windows only. But nowadays the trend is to write software to be compatible with the three main players, Windows + Macintosh + Linux so that its gets better penetration into the Market. It even gets better when the Software you love to use, is Open Source. Starting this spring of 2007, I shall endeavor to blog about the software tools I discover each week. Hope these entries will keep you amused and turn your interest into Open Source Software.

VYM – Mind Mapping software collaborating over the Network

VYM (View Your Mind) is a tool to generate and manipulate maps which show your thoughts. Such maps can help you to improve your creativity and effectiveness. You can use them for time management, to organize tasks, to get an overview over complex contexts, to sort your ideas etc.

vym is not another drawing software, but a tool to store and modify information in an intuitive way. For example you can reorder parts of the map by pressing a key or add various information like a complete email by a simple mouse click. Grab the software from the View Your Mind Sourceforge Project Page. I saw a Lightning talk by the Author of this tool, which demonstrates that you can collaborate your thoughts using this tool with other clients connected over the Network. Now that is coolness.

soapUI – Webservices User Interface

This tool is God Send. soapUI is a free and open source desktop application for inspecting, invoking, developing, simulating/mocking and functional/load/compliance testing of web services over HTTP. If you are a Web-developer, who has written a Web service and want to test if its functional, then I recommend you download and use it as a debugging tool for your web services.

Its available as a FREE download as well as a Pro version which you can pay for support. Its got a very good feature set including the ability to do a “Web Service Simulation”, “Load Testing”, “Functional Testing” and more.

A security policy in place prevents mounting of volumes.

Jeffery — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 04:18:59 +0000

If you happen to access a CD-ROM device or USB device which results in the following error:

A security policy in place prevents this sender from sending this message to this recipient, see message bus configuration file (rejected message had interface “org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume” member “Mount” error name “(unset)” destination “org.freedesktop.Hal”)

….. I have a fix for you. This is caused by the hal daemon not allowing you to access the device because of a security policy. The hal daemons security policy resides in a file at “/etc/dbus-1/system.d/hal.conf”. Lets open and see whats in there.

< !DOCTYPE busconfig PUBLIC
 "-//freedesktop//DTD D-BUS Bus Configuration 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/dbus/1.0/busconfig.dtd">

If you observer this config file you will see there are the following sections:

Owners of tha HAL service
Permissions for anyone to invoke the Manager and Device interfaces
Default policy for the exported interfaces
Policy for Console Interface
Policies for Users or Groups

In our error message, the problem was with the “org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.Volume” security policy. In our policy file shown above, we do not have a policy allowing any user to use the Volume devices. However towards the end of the policy config file, you can see there is a policy set for the “root” user. The user=”0″ attribute, means that its referencing the root user. Therefore as the policy says, only the root user has access to the Volume device. It also states in the comment, that we can change this policy or add an other one to suit our needs.

So we can add a new policy for the group called “plugdev” or “cdrom” or whatever group you feel like. Make sure you have the group created before adding the policy. In my case I added the group “plugdev” and added my user account to belong to that group. Now lets add the new policy:

Once you have added the new policy, restarting X would be a good idea to make the changes affective. I don’t know if this is in fact the case for everyone but do so if you are still get the the error. On the other hand you could also try restarting the hal daemon by executing:

/etc/init.d/haldaemon restart

Another way of fixing the problem is to just add the policies to the Permissions for anyone to invoke the Manager and Device interfaces section of the config. That way you don’t have to add a group and specify to which group you are allowing access to the Volume devices. So that section will look like:

I haven’t test this method of allowing Volume access. So if you have and got it working, your feedback is welcome.

Powered by Linux signature

Jeffery — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:25:13 +0000

I use this little snippet of code which generates my signature for all my out-going emails. I am just trying to be an Open Source advocate and spreading the word about Linux

#!/bin/bash

powered="$(head -n 1 /etc/SuSE-release)"

kernel=`uname -r`
echo "Powered by $powered Kernel: $kernel"

kde=`kde-config -v | grep KDE`
echo $kde

uptime

I use KDE and hook this script in kmail via the “Identities” > “Signature” tab

And here is a more generic version without KDE or OpenSuSe specific calls

#!/bin/bash
powered="$(lsb_release -d | awk -F':' '{print $2}')"

kernel=`uname -r`
echo "Powered by $powered Kernel: $kernel"

uptime

openSuSe 10.2 Reference Manual

Jeffery — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 04:39:17 +0000

If you haven’t known about it yet, grab it. Its not the most comprehensive of manuals but it has got me unstuck a few times. You can download the openSuSe 10.2 Reference Manual from my files repository. The online version can be viewed at Novell’s Website, which also includes few other manuals.