Arduino: Configuring on Linux

You want to install the Arduino development environment on a linux machine: there is the standard download and there are distro-specific installers available. There are also some instruction on setting up your environment linked from the official pages.

The route I followed on my usual distro (Centos 6) was to install Java, then the Arduino download. There were still a couple of non-functioning parts: errors from the rxtx library about lockfiles and greyed out serial port menu in the Arduino IDE.

These are RedHat/Fedora/Centos permissions issues that can be resolved easily:

* edit /etc/group

* add your username to the uucp, lock and dialout groups

That should fix it by giving your user the required access to the computer's lock directory and serial ports 

http proxy environment variable

I keep on forgetting this - because it's set and forget. Then you move to new machine, try and run apt or something and...

To use the internets from your shell (lynx,wget, apt or yum from the command-line etc) when located behind a proxy server. Set an env var 'http_proxy' in your profile (.bashrc, .profile etc) - or just set it from a script or command line:

export http_proxy=http://your.proxy.address:proxy-port

if the proxy server wants authentication:

export http_proxy=http://username:password@your.proxy.address:proxy-port
(hmm, password in plain text - make sure your dot files can only be read by self)

My problem is that I tend to forget to add the protocol ('http://') to the above line & then waste some time swearing when it doesn't work. I need to setup more machines, then I'd remember.