Peculiar Teensyduino problem

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markkimball

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I recently installed copies of the most recent Arduino IDE (1.8.16) and Teensyduino 1.55 on a Dell D600 running Puppy Linux (it works pretty well on old computers). The combination _seems_ to work OK, at least nothing crashes. But the IDE Tools drop-down menu indicates that my Teensy4.0 is set up for secure code (and it isn't). The compiler also fails because the teensy_secure utility program uses a library that's not installed on the computer. Since my Teensy isn't set up for secure code anyway it's likely it either will be bricked or the upload will just fail.

The Dell+IDE combination works just fine for programming older boards like the Uno.

My other laptop, a Lenovo Thinkpad W530 running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, has Arduino version 1.8.12 and TD 1.55 and it compiles/uploads to my T4.0 just fine. There is no "Teensy 4 Security" item in the Tools dropdown menu, either.

I don't particularly want to buy a more modern laptop to write code for my T4, and I don't want to move the Thinkpad into my lab space, which has no internet connectivity. Does anyone have any thoughts on _why_ my old H/W+S/W might think the Teensy is set up for the secure code option?

Thanks in advance--
Mark
 
Actually the item I think you are looking is titled "Teensy 4 Security" as show in the picture below:
Capture.PNG

That is actually an optional tool you can run if your Teensy 4 or Teensy 4.1 is a lockable version of the those Teensies and you want to use that feature. Since you don't have a lockable version - not sure when they will be available - you can safely ignore it. Just select the Teensy you want to compile/run for from the Board menu and your port and you will be able to load sketches the way you did before and you will be off to the races.
 
Officially, for Linux on PCs, only Ubuntu is supported. Unofficially, maybe the missing library can be somehow installed for Puppy Linux? A screenshot or exact copy of the error would be a good starting point, as it seems unlikely many (or any) people reading this forum are using that particular Linux distro.

Regardless of the system, if you have installed Teensyduino 1.55, the Tools menu should always have "Teensy 4 Security". This tool means nothing about the Teensy board(s) connected to your machine. It doesn't access hardware at all. "Teensy 4 Security" should appear, even if you're not using Teensy 4.x or any Teensy at all. It is used to manage your key.pem file and generate code which programs the key & other settings, which are operations which occur completely on your PC.
 
Actually the item I think you are looking is titled "Teensy 4 Security" as show in the picture below:
View attachment 26492

That is actually an optional tool you can run if your Teensy 4 or Teensy 4.1 is a lockable version of the those Teensies and you want to use that feature. Since you don't have a lockable version - not sure when they will be available - you can safely ignore it. Just select the Teensy you want to compile/run for from the Board menu and your port and you will be able to load sketches the way you did before and you will be off to the races.

As long as teensy_secure has to run in order to compile Teensy code, I am in fact dead in the water. Regardless if it makes a lockable version or not, that utility apparently is called into action. Now, if I can change the compile environment.....different story. I'll take a look at that.
 
Editing platform.txt found in arduino-system-follder/hardware/teensy/avr to eliminate calls to teensy_secure got rid of the error messages relating to teensy_secure. So perhaps my missing library problem is solved. But, still, not all is well. Now I'm getting error messages saying "teensy loader" not running or not being found. No such thing exists in the Tools folder.

Platform.txt has some comments regarding Teensy Loader, which actually may be called teensy_post_compile; but if so it IS present in the tools folder. That also is the case for the functioning Arduino environment on my Thinkpad so at this point I'm not sure what's going on.
 
Looked at platform.txt ... was going to note that removing the call to "teensy_secure" should solve that.

Teensy Loader is the "Teensy.exe" - that is what teensy_post_compile is looking for with : inform Teensy Loader of new file.

The teeny.exe should be in the same directory - and it should run and show a window if executed?
 
Looked at platform.txt ... was going to note that removing the call to "teensy_secure" should solve that.

Teensy Loader is the "Teensy.exe" - that is what teensy_post_compile is looking for with : inform Teensy Loader of new file.

The teeny.exe should be in the same directory - and it should run and show a window if executed?

The problem is that Teensy.exe requires a library that's not present -- libgtk-3.so.0. When called, it quietly exits so it wasn't immediately obvious what was going on.

Unfortunately, this particular distro's package manager doesn't support GTK3 so it gets a lot harder from here. It appears my dinosaur of an OS should be given a good funeral.....oh well....
 
GTK3 is required.

Again, PJRC's position is we only support Ubuntu on x64 PCs. Most other Linux distros tend to work, but when they are lacking some library or feature, you need to either find a way to install that missing feature, or switch to Ubuntu, or any of the many other unsupported-but-works Linux distros.
 
Thanks to all for the input.

I loaded lubuntu-18.04LTS on the old laptop. I believe it's the last "lightweight" 32-bit Ubuntu distro. Arduino and Teensyduino appear to run OK, but the old laptop is pretty bogged down by all the OS overhead. Though it should be good enough for my current project...
 
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