::[ edam ]::

Using an external editor for Arduino development

edam — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 20:16:14 +0000

The Arduino IDE is nice to get beginners started, but you’ll quickly hit its limitations. And if, like me, you found an option in the preferences dialogue that enables an external editor, you’ll have been disappointed to find that it seems only to disable the internal editor!

It is possible to work entirely outside the IDE, with your own editor (like Emacs or Eclipse) and build your projects from the command line (or in another IDE). Here’s one way to do it…

You should make sure that the Arduino IDE is working first. This will ensure the compiler, C-library an Arduino libraries are installed and working correctly and that you can communicate with your Arduino. Then you’ll want to use a Makefile. I’ve spent some time writing one, in collaboration with quite a few other people, an it’s available here. It’s very easy to use, quite fully-featured, and as compatible with the IDE as possible. (Other makefiles also exist, of course.)

OK, so to build your project outside the IDE, you’ll need to do the following:

Download the `arduino.mk` ([from here](http://ed.am/dev/make/arduino-mk)). You should save it somewhere accessible, like in your home directory. I keep mine at `~/src/arduino.mk`.
In your project directory, edit your main file and save it as a `.ino` file, just as you would in the IDE.
Create yourself a `Makefile`, with the following in:

BOARD = uno
include ~/src/arduino.mk

Obviously, you should replace `~/src/arduino.mk` with the location you saved the Aruino makefile. Having saved `Makefile`, you can run `make boards` to see what board names exist. Then, you should set the `BOARD` variable correctly (“uno” may not be correct).

And that’s it!

To build your project, you should only have to type

$ make

To upload it to the Arduino board, go

$ make upload

(If it can’t detect your Arduino by its self, you may need to set the SERIALDEV variable in your Makefile.)

And if you want to use the Serial Monitor from the Arduino IDE without running the IDE, you can achieve this by going

$ make monitor

This actually runs GNU screen. (You’ll need to remember the shortcut keys to kill screen (^a k, by default) so that you can get out of it!)

If something goes wrong or isn’t working, you should have a look at the documentation for arduino.mk.

How to start an application on a specific workspace

edam — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 19:48:43 +0000

Many X applications allow you to specify geometry, like this:

$ terminator --geometry=200x200+0+0

Which is great. But it doesn’t let you specify what desktop you want the application to open on.

For a while, in GNOME 3, I used the Auto Move Windows extension, which moves all windows of a given application to a particular workspace. The limitation with this approach is that it affects all windows of a given application and can’t be specified per application launch (which is not so useful for, say, terminals!)

So I wrote a script to do what I wanted. You simply pass the script a desktop (which is a zero-based index) and the command to launch. E.g.:

$ start-on-workspace 1 terminator --geometry=200x200+0+0

Here’s the script. It works by launching the process then polling the X-server for any windows that are owned by that process 10 times a second for 10 seconds. If it finds one, it moves it to the specified workspace.

#!/bin/bash

APP=`basename "$0"`

die()
{
echo $APP: "$@" >&2
exit 1
}

usage()
{
echo 'usage: '$APP' WORKSPACE CMD [ARG]...'
echo
echo 'WORKSPACE is the zero-based index of the workspace'
exit 1
}

# check wmctrl is available
[[ -x `which wmctrl` ]] || die "please install wmctrl"

# we should have at least 2 args
[[ -n "$2" ]] || usage

# check workspace
WS=$1
[[ $(( 0 + $WS )) -gt 0 || "$WS" == "0" ]] || usage
shift

# launch program
"$@" &
CPID=$!

# look for the window every 0.1 seconds for 10 seconds
for (( A = 0; A < 100; A++ )); do
sleep 0.1

# has child process terminated?
[[ -d /proc/$CPID ]] || break

# try to find process's window ID
WID=`wmctrl -lp | \
egrep '^0x[0-9a-f]+ +[-0-9]+ +'$CPID' ' | \
awk '{print $1}'`
if [[ -n "$WID" ]]; then

# move the window
wmctrl -ir $WID -t $WS
break

fi
done

# failed?
[[ $A -eq 100 ]] && die "couldn't find application's window..."

ACTA: Dangerous new laws for Europe

edam — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:28:16 +0000

The EU are currently voting on whether to sign-up to the ACTA treaty being proposed globally and pushed by the US. The treaty has been negotiated in secret and aims to give even more power to “intellectual property” holders. From patented seeds and medicines, to internet connections policed by your ISP, ACTA is a major threat to developing countries and freedom of expression on-line.

For more information about ACTA, and what you can do to oppose it, see this page.

Arduino on Debian Wheezy

edam — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:27:26 +0000

I recently discovered the joys of Arduino! But setting up the development environment on Debian Testing (Wheezy) took me a while. Here is what I did…

Set up the Arduino IDE

Many packages required for Arduino development were recently removed from Debian’s testing repositories. At the time of writing, they are being held in sid, waiting on a some issues before being migrated.

In the mean-time, you can download pre-built binaries from the arduino.cc download page is pretty simple. I downloaded version 0022 for 64-bit Linux. You just unpack this in to a directory and run the arduino script. You’ll need to have Java installed.

$ apt-get install openjdk-6-jre

Next, you have to get the Arduino device to be detected. This works ok on Wheezy. Plug it in and look in your kern.log. It should show up as a serial device (my Ardino Uno shows up as /dev/ttyACM0).

So far so good.

Get the AVR C++ compiler working

You need to get the AVR C++ compiler and C-library. Unfortunately, the newer versions of the required packages in sid don’t work (which is why they’ve not been migrated). Fortunately, the ones in squeeze work fine. Download the following packages from squeeze

gcc-avr (the compiler)
avr-libc (the C-library)
binutils-avr (tools to work with AVR binaries)

And install them

$ dpkg -i avr-libc_*.deb binutils-avr_*.deb gcc-avr_*.deb

This way, when they are finally migrated to wheezy, they should just get upgraded normally.

Test the set-up

Open up the Arduino IDE.
Go to Tools -> Serial Port and select the serial port your Arduino is appearing as.

If you can’t see it, there is a problem with the device being detected. If you opened the IDE before the device was plugged in, try closing it and re-opening it.
Go to File -> Examples -> Basics -> Blink. Then go to Sketch -> Verify / Compile.

If there are compiler errors, you have a problem with the set-up of the AVR C++ compiler or the C-library.
Finally, go to File -> Upload to I/O Board. You should see the board’s serial TX/RX LEDs flicker, and then you should see the LED next to pin 13 blinking on and off. Congratulations.

My website has moved

edam — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:10:04 +0000

My website has moved to…

ed.am

All links to the previous site should redirect properly and, even though I now have a new email address, all my previous email addresses still work fine (and always will), so no one really needs to update anything.

Additionally, I now have new sites to provide services related to the software hosted here. You can currently find bug trackers for various projects here:

dev.ed.am

The bug tracker, along with Bazaar source code browser (at bzr.ed.am), and other subdomains (such as files.ed.am) should allow me to host projects on the waxworlds.org servers from now on. I had previously been going to use Launchpad, but I don’t feel Canonical represents my interests so well any more.

I’m a dad again!

edam — Thu, 12 May 2011 05:58:51 +0000

Little baby Benjamin was born at 1:37am on the 9th May (his due date!) weighing 8lb 11oz. Becky, once again, delivered naturally and without any pain medication whatsoever! What a star!

Becky is recovering well. And Isobel has come home (she had been with her Grandma, Grandpa and Uncle Dan) and has met her baby brother. She seems completely enamoured with him. We’re still trying to find a new routine where we get to sleep a bit. But apart from being tired, we’re all well.

Here’s our little boy:

You can get bigger copies of these photos in Benjamin’s gallery.

Ubuntu Lucid on an Acer Aspire 3690

edam — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:55:16 +0000

Having recently installed Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Linx) on my partner’s Acer Aspire 3690, I was, as usual, impressed at how much of the hardware worked out of the box. Pretty much everything worked, from wi-fi to volume keys. There were only a couple of things that didn’t…

Suspend (to RAM)

This didn’t work. The screen turns off (I think the laptop is wired this way), but the fan doesn’t power off and the machine doesn’t power down.

Eventually, I found this in the syslog:

pm_op(): usb_dev_suspend+0x0/0x20 returns -16
PM: Device usb1 failed to suspend: error -16
PM: Some devices failed to suspend

The USB device referred to is the built-in webcam. After quite a bit of googling I came across a kernel bug that explained it all (and turned out not to be a kernel bug). The built-in webcam (lsusb says it is: “ID 0402:5602 ALi Corp. Video Camera Controller”) resumes immediately after being suspended, causing the suspend procedure to fail.

To fix it, I added the following script to /etc/pm/sleep.d (don’t forget to chmod +x it):

#!/bin/sh

# fix the suspend issue on Asus Aspire 3690. The built-in camera (device ID
# 0402:5602, "ALi Corp. Video Camera Controller") issues a wakup during the
# suspend process, aborting suspend. So lets turn it off.

# To install, make this script executable and move it to /etc/pm/sleep.d

case $1 in
thaw|resume)
echo disabled > /sys/bus/usb/devices/1-4/power/wakeup
;;
esac

Flash

Yes, flash again. :o(

The Acer Apire 3690 is not a powerful machine, but it is easily capable of playing video. Unfortunately, the latest version of Adobe’s proprietary flash plugin at this time, 10.0.45.2, which ships with Lucid, can run away with the CPU and bring the browser to a crawl. The BBC iPlayer is the worst culprit. Sometime between 30 seconds and 5 minutes in to a video, CPU usage jumps to 98% and firefox becomes unresponsive.

I haven’t fixed this entirely, but I have managed to alleviate the problem slightly. ~~A pre-release version of flash player 10.1 handles flash movies that have gone awry much better.~~ Update: flash player has been updated to 10.1 in Lucid now. It pops-up a message box to let you know that some actionscript is causing the flash player to run slowly.

I’m a dad!

edam — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:06:37 +0000

Our precious little Isobel was born at 2:22am on 26th July. She was a healthy 10lb 6oz (Becky delivered her naturally and without any form of pain medication).

The last three weeks have been a bit of a blur! Izzy has been well behaved though and she sleeps quite well at night. Becky has recovered well and her and Izzy are getting in to a feeding routine. Neither of us are looking forward to me going back to work again tomorrow though.

Anyway, here is our beautiful little girl:

There are more pictures of our beautiful little girl in her gallery.

UK Bankruptcy

edam — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:47:25 +0000

Anyone interested in the current dire state of the UK’s economy, exactly how it came about and some interesting observations on our government’s mishandling and our media’s misreporting of it will find the following 3-page article very interesting indeed. I would definitely recommend it to those who are not economists.

http://www.webtvhub.com/bankrupt-britain/

Jimmy Doherty’s GM Food Farce

edam — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:09:13 +0000

“Jimmy Doherty’s GM Food Fight” was shown on BBC 2 at 9pm on 25th November, 2008. It motivated (annoyed) me in to writing this post.

I found the programme to be quite biased. In many ways and on many levels…

He misses out large parts of the arguments against GM crops.

E.g., that companies like Monsanto (and others) are only creating them to make money. Monsanto are selling seeds that will require pesticides and fertiliser (also, conveniently, bought from Monsanto) in order to produce the yields they talk about. They really don’t care about any negative effects of GM crops and would sell them even if they were aware of any (you want to know exactly how evil Monsanto are? Check out their Wikipedia page). And there are no guarantees that those same farmers that Monsanto are “helping” will be able to afford the rising costs of the Monsanto products they become locked in to.

Another example of a point he skips over is that there is evidence showing that the contamination of non-GM plants can also spread to weeds, making them resistant to pesticides. This means we will have to use more and stronger pesticides to combat them. Just as the frivolous use of antibiotics in medicine and food is leading to new races of “super bugs” that are resistant to our medicines, so too could we end up with “super weeds”. GM public debate: Environmental damage | Greenpeace UK

He dismisses several key arguments against GM, either downplaying them, or not exploring them properly.

The exploration of how GM crops might be harmful to the environment is laughable! He ends up concluding they might be beneficial! Really!? A quick google brings up some different opinions: Number 10′s wildlife experts warn against GM damage | UK news | The Observer GM crops could damage bird populations, warns visiting Macaulay seminar speaker – The Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen Prince Charles warns GM crops risk causing the biggest-ever environmental disaster – Telegraph

The exploration of whether GM foods are harmful misses out some seriously damning studies. You can read more in the articles below, but (in summary) GM corn, canola, soy and potatoes (including some of Monsanto’s “Roundup Ready” GM product line) have been linked with “liver lesions and indications of toxicity”, “altered production of liver enzymes”, “excessive cell growth” (possible cancer) and “damaged organs and immune systems” in studies on rats. Not to mention another study that showed infertility and very high infant mortality rates in rats fed on GM soy. PCC | GM Food Crops: Consumer Health Concerns: Reproductive failures and infant mortality GM diets may cause organ damage and disease | Perspectives… To be honest though, I suspect the program avoided these issues for legal reasons. Another aspect that is not explored by the programme is how heavy-handed Monsanto (and I would imagine others) are with anyone who criticises them — see the “Legal” section on Monsanto’s Wikipedia page.

Another point he downplays is the irreversible nature of the contamination of non-GM crops by GM crops. GM public debate: Environmental damage | Greenpeace UK

Some points in the programme are downright misleading.

There are no flood-resistant or drought-resistant GM crops currently. There are some GM trials where they are experimenting with genetic manipulation to achieve this. You wouldn’t know that by watching the programme though. Peter Melchett: Who can we trust on GM food? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

I also found the whole tone of the programme to be biased.

E.g., he continually refers to the people creating GM crops as “the scientists” (think: those clever people), rather than “the companies” (think: those greedy evil-doers). In fact, I think they are only refered to as companies about once, maybe twice, throughout the whole programme.

Another example: The conversation with the African GM scientist regarding people breaking in to the facility to steal (rather than damage) the GM crops. Bare in mine that, as with most TV, the scene is not some casual conversation, but a staged (possibly scripted) conversation. With that in mind, watch the scene again. See how Jimmy “misunderstands” that people wanted to steal, not damage, the crops (Jimmy: cue fake laugh). And if that’s not bad enough, he actually repeats the whole fake misunderstanding a second time to really spell it out and make sure the point is hammered home!

Another example: Jimmy refers to Americans “happily eating GM foods for years”. This is not entirely true – they don’t know when they’re eating them. They don’t label them over there! If they are happy as they eat them, it is only through ignorance.

I don’t mean to be picky… but there are so many “little” examples of bias that contribute to the overall tone. I found them really quite annoying.

Ok, this post’s really getting a bit long now. And it’s late! Sorry about my rant. :o)

If you want to read another rant about this program, this article is very good: GM Food Fight breaks out the natureheads blog

Also, if you want to read a sensible response to this TV programme then I would highly recommend reading the following article. It is up-to-date (9th December, 2008) and although it talks about a pro-GM radio programme, it could just as easily be talking about Jimmy Doherty’s Food Fight. Peter Melchett: Who can we trust on GM food? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Update: This article is also good: Jimmy’s GM Food Fix

Update: Study finds that Monsanto GMO Corn is linked with organ failure.