Maintaining Arduino on Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I used to use Arduino on Windows but I changed to Linux last week and I was wondering how to have a maintained version of the Arduino terminal:

Indeed, I'm not sure my version is quite recent:

The icon seems to have lived ages without a little lifting...

Maybe I'm wrong but it seems so when I open the "Tools" option for instance...

Furthermore I tried to copy and paste this code:

//ONG LIT YIT 2013-07-20
//This following code plays happy birthday melody on Arduino
//Put Piezo Buzzer on GDN and 9 (Positive and negative are reversible)
//this project requires a Piezo Buzzer and

// an Arduino board and

//jumper wires to connect Buzzer's (+) to ~9 and (-) to GND (any GND)

//HAVE FUN

//this project requires a Piezo Buzzer and

// an Arduino board and

//jumper wires to connect Buzzer's (+) to ~9 and (-) to GND (any GND)

//HAVE FUN

int speakerPin = 9;

int length = 28; // the number of notes

char notes[] = "GGAGcB GGAGdc GGxecBA yyecdc";

int beats[] = { 2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 16, 1, 2, 2, 8, 8,8, 16, 1, 2,2,8,8,8,8,16, 1,2,2,8,8,8,16 };

int tempo = 150;

void playTone(int tone, int duration) {

for (long i = 0; i < duration * 1000L; i += tone * 2) {

   digitalWrite(speakerPin, HIGH);

   delayMicroseconds(tone);

   digitalWrite(speakerPin, LOW);

   delayMicroseconds(tone);

}

}

void playNote(char note, int duration) {

char names[] = {'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'A', 'B',           

                 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'a', 'b',

                 'x', 'y' };

int tones[] = { 1915, 1700, 1519, 1432, 1275, 1136, 1014,

                 956,  834,  765,  593,  468,  346,  224,

                 655 , 715 };

int SPEE = 5;

// play the tone corresponding to the note name

for (int i = 0; i < 17; i++) {

   if (names[i] == note) {
    int newduration = duration/SPEE;
     playTone(tones[i], newduration);

   }

}

}

void setup() {

pinMode(speakerPin, OUTPUT);

}

void loop() {

for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {

   if (notes[i] == ' ') {

     delay(beats[i] * tempo); // rest

   } else {

     playNote(notes[i], beats[i] * tempo);

   }

   // pause between notes

   delay(tempo);

}

}

And not all of it appeared in the Arduino terminal.

Answer 1

If you want to get maintained (automatically updated) version of Arduino IDE then you install if from a package repository with its dependencies e.g. using apt-get:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install arduino arduino-core

However, this way you get a very old version (currently 1.0.5). Obviously, it is not updated too often if at all.

If you already installed from the package repository via apt-get you can uninstall the package and its dependencies like this:

sudo apt-get remove arduino arduino-core
sudo apt-get autoremove

Better way is to download and install Arduino IDE yourself. This way Arduino software won't automatically be updated, so you should check Arduino website every now and then and download a new version if one is available.

Open a terminal window (e.g. by pressing CTRL-ALT-T), and run uname -m to check if you are running 32 bit or 64 bit platform:

uname -m

See output:

x86_64 ==> 64-bit kernel
i686   ==> 32-bit kernel

Go to Arduino Download page on Download the Arduino Software and download the 32 bit or 64 bit version, depending on the Ubuntu version installed on your computer.

In a terminal window extract the package and move it to your preferred location, e.g. /opt. You need sudo rights to move it to /opt. Finally, run the install script if you want to start the IDE graphically (adds desktop icon, MIME type, default application for .ino). See the example commands below for installing the latest 32 bit version as of the time of writing to /opt.

cd ~/Downloads
tar xf arduino-1.6.7-linux32.tar.xz
sudo mv arduino-1.6.7 /opt
/opt/arduino-1.6.7/install.sh

You can also start the IDE from the terminal:

/opt/arduino-1.6.7/arduino