Major issues - Minor understanding?!?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hello Paul,
hello users,

coming from a live on Windows OSs, i now started to make my fights with Linux, UbuntuStudio, latest version with all recommended updates installed.
I have to say that i could not have been more stupid changing to Linux. This is what i feel at the moment.
Additionally, i want to get my Teensy++2.0 running because I'd love to see my LED panel doing its blinky games.

However, I am feeling to finally sell all the stuff i already bought because i dont get any idea of what to do, where to do, and how to do. To make it short: I feel to lose patienece and I already want to get aggressive against objects.


Why all this?

At first, I am not smart enough to find a simple "how to" that tells me all the steps needed to get anything run.
Even Pauls website obviously seems to aim on people with a degree in computer science.
I have an Arduino 2009 and i was able to "install" the IDE on my Ubuntu just by copying the files into /usr/share/Arduino. So far - so good.
Now i thought it would be the same with Teensyduino and tried to place the folders content into the Arduino folder.
WRONG! Doesnt work! Because i "do not own the rights to do so", my Ubuntu says.
But, mentioned already, about minutes before i placed the Arduino folder just right there.

Secondly, the Teensyduino software comes with an ending saying ".64bit".
Actually i cannot find a way to get my computer handling this piece of software as intended.
While i double click on it, Ubuntu teaches me that the "file format is not supported". Nothing less, nothing more.
Here I stand, not knowing more than before.
Then i tried to move the folder, which also is wrong. There must be a certain way to use Teensyduino on Linux. I am sure there is.

Then there is the "udev rules" thing.
As I understand i have to place it in "/etc/udev/rules.d/49-teensy.rules". So i tried to.
But again i wasnt allowed to do so. Even if i already managed to create another user account with admin rights I am not able to get it done right.



I wonder why i cant find, and even Pauls website doesnt have a real "step by step tutorial" which enables people just like me to find a way to use the software, to use the Teensy++2.0 board right away.
I do understand that there are several different Linux distributions out there and that there might be differences in "how to", but all I expeirience is that I would have to follow thousnds of links to get all informations needed collected.
A very bad way for me as a person that get distracted from things very easy due to certain things that do not belong in here.



What I want to do if everything runs is this:
I create electronic musical events and I want to display them on my LED board. Nothing special in 2013, i guess.
Many people out there are doing this in their free time.




Finally I want to ask the community for help. I only have just a couple of month left to get it done before I want to present my results on a public festival.
Is there anyone who feels like mercy with me?

Thanks in advance.



Maybe its a good idea to mention that english is a foreign language to me and that I do not intend to offend anybody.
Said just in case. :)
 
I mostly use Linux the very old-fashioned way, by typing commands in terminal windows. So everything in this message is commands to type in the terminal.

First of all, in Linux (and all Unix systems) every file has an owner and a set of permissions. You can see them with the "ls -l" command. For example:

Code:
paul@preston:~/teensy/arduino-1.0.4 > ls -l
total 84
-rwxr-xr-x  1 paul paul   444 Mar 11 07:00 arduino
drwxrwxr-x 14 paul paul  4096 Apr 22 13:54 examples
drwxrwxr-x  5 paul paul  4096 Apr 22 13:54 hardware
drwxrwxr-x  3 paul paul  4096 Apr 22 13:54 lib
drwxrwxr-x 58 paul paul  4096 Apr 27 16:56 libraries
drwxrwxr-x  3 paul paul 16384 Mar 11 07:00 reference
-rw-rw-r--  1 paul paul 37256 Mar 11 07:00 revisions.txt
drwxr-xr-x  2 paul paul  4096 Apr 22 13:54 src
drwxrwxr-x  3 paul paul  4096 Mar 11 07:00 tools

Notice the command prompt shows which directory I'm currently using. Without specifying which location you want, the "ls" command uses the current directory.

Everything here is owned by me. The "rwx" means read, write and execute permission. The first 3 are permissions for me, the next 3 are for the group (which is also me), and the last 3 are for all other users.

Here's one more example:

Code:
paul@preston:~/teensy/arduino-1.0.4 > ls -l /etc/udev/rules.d/
total 28
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   83 Aug 11  2012 00-beagle12.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  749 Jan 17 09:53 10-arduino.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1622 May 10 12:31 49-teensy.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  605 Jul 10  2012 70-persistent-cd.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  656 Apr 29 07:45 70-persistent-net.rules
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  437 Aug 18  2012 99-SaleaeLogic.rules
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1157 Apr  5  2012 README

These are the files in the udev rules directory. They're all owned by root. Everyone has permission to read them, but only root can write. Likewise, that directory itself is only writable by root. If I try to write to it as "paul" (without doing something to obtain access as root), I'll get a permission denied error.

If you continue to try using Linux, hopefully an awareness that all files are owned by a particular user and how the permission works will help?


I'll try to quickly answer some of these, as best as I can....

I have an Arduino 2009 and i was able to "install" the IDE on my Ubuntu just by copying the files into /usr/share/Arduino. So far - so good.

Normally locations like /usr/share are owned by root. So you probably had to do something special to copy to this location. That likely resulted in all the files being owned by root and not writable to ordinary users. It's hard to say for sure, since you didn't specify exactly how you copied the files to this special location.

There's no need to use /usr/share. As you can see from above, I just put it in a location within my own home directory.


Now i thought it would be the same with Teensyduino and tried to place the folders content into the Arduino folder.
WRONG! Doesnt work! Because i "do not own the rights to do so", my Ubuntu says.
But, mentioned already, about minutes before i placed the Arduino folder just right there.

To place something in /usr/share, you almost certainly had to do something special (involving entering a password) to write the files.

Secondly, the Teensyduino software comes with an ending saying ".64bit".
Actually i cannot find a way to get my computer handling this piece of software as intended.
While i double click on it, Ubuntu teaches me that the "file format is not supported". Nothing less, nothing more.

On Linux, those permission bits are the thing that indicates if a file is an executable. Windows uses extensions like .exe, but Linux uses the permission settings. Sadly, many of the error messages on Linux are terse and not at all helpful. Hopefully this message will help fill in the gap a bit. From the command line, the command is "chmod". The GUI (Unity, Gnome, KDE, etc) probably has some way to do it too, but I don't use the GUI stuff.

Once you add the "x" permission to the file, you will be able to run it. The installer will appear.

Then there is the "udev rules" thing.
As I understand i have to place it in "/etc/udev/rules.d/49-teensy.rules". So i tried to.
But again i wasnt allowed to do so.

This is the one step which must be done with root permission, since the /etc/udev/rules.d/ directory is writable only to root. From the command line, you would use this:

Code:
sudo cp 49-teensy.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/49-teensy.rules

Even if i already managed to create another user account with admin rights I am not able to get it done right.

Normally you would use "sudo" (at least from the command line) which will ask for your password. Everything after the sudo command is executed as if the root user had run the command.

The default setting is whatever account you creating while installing Linux will have permission to use sudo (of course, with your password).

I'm not sure how the GUIs like Unity and Gnome handle this stuff, since I don't use them. But the general idea is you, as the main user of the system, do have permission to execute commands as if you were "root". Generally there's some process, similar to sudo, to perform operations as the root user instead of yourself. You should only do so when absolutely necessary (for Arduino and Teensy, only the udev rule), since the result will be files and directories created as root. Everything you do as root will create files and directories which you, as yourself the normal user, do not have permission to change, unless you do the extra "sudo" step.

If you create another new user, they will not be "root" unless you do some very unusual stuff, which is unlikely to work properly. Normally using sudo is best.


Hopefully this helps?

Perhaps PJRC should make some video tutorials showing all the install steps?
 
Hello Paul,

thank you for your detailed informations.
I have read your post about minutes after you've posted it, but i wasnt able to response until now.

I got mad. Really.
Just right now a friend left my house. He is much younger and has more "Terminal experience" than me and he solved my problems.
From what i remember, he did everything in the Console/Terminal/Shell/What-ever-it-might-be-called, including renaming the files, moving them to my folders and executing the files.

I hope that I now can use the "PixelController" software made by Michael Vogt, which was my reason to go with Teensy.
I also bought an additional Teensy 2.0, just to make sure it will run as Michael recommended Teensy as tested.

However Paul, i would like to reply to the last sentence of your post, saying that, imho, you really could do "some better" instructions. :)
I do understand that people who are specialists in a certain field tend to use their own topic-related language and so on, but i suggest, to enable interested people to use your boards and developments even if they are pretty new to the matter, some more detailed informations are needed.
I do know that there are thousands of websites that might hold all infos I need, but it is really hard to search the web, not knowing what you need to search for.
Additionally, searching all these sites also takes a lot of time and also generations of new users also would have to search the same stuff again and again.
I think you know what I mean..

Thank you.
Keep the good work up, Paul.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top