Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use microcontroller hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

This short tutorial will guide you through the installation of the Arduino development environment on Ubuntu. These instructions reference arduino-0010 and have been tested on Feisty and Gutsy, both 32-bit and 64-bit installations. Thanks to this post on the Ubuntu Forums for the basic setup.

(1) Install the necessary architecture-specific dependencies (the Java runtime and the AVR microcontroller tools):

sudo apt-get install sun-java5-bin sun-java5-jdk avr-libc gcc-avr librxtx-java

(2) Remove one conflicting package:

sudo apt-get remove brltty

(3) Configure Java to work with Arduino:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

You should see a dialog similar to this:

There are 5 alternatives which provide `java'.

  Selection    Alternative
-----------------------------------------------
          1    /usr/bin/gij-4.2
          2    /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
 +        3    /usr/lib/j2se/1.4/bin/java
          4    /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/bin/java
*         5    /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun/jre/bin/java

Press enter to keep the default[*], or type selection number:

Locate the option containing “java-1.5.0-sun” and select it. This will make Sun’s Java v.1.5 the default on your system (the GNU version doesn’t support the Arduino environment).

(4) Download the latest release of the Arduino IDE software for Linux, and extract the compressed folder.

(5) Open the subdirectory arduino-0010/lib/ and rename the following files as shown (resolves conflicts with librxtx-java):

RXTXcomm.jar
librxtxSerial.so
  ---become---
RXTXcomm.jar.BAK
librxtxSerial.so.BAK

(6) Edit the arduino launcher file (arduino-0010/arduino) with a text editor and replace the contents with the following (resolves conflicts with librxtx-java):

#!/bin/sh

# Original: CLASSPATH=java/lib/rt.jar:lib:lib/build:lib/pde.jar:lib/core.jar:lib/antlr.jar:lib/oro.jar:lib/registry.jar:lib/mrj.jar:lib/RXTXcomm.jar
CLASSPATH=java/lib/rt.jar:lib:lib/build:lib/pde.jar:lib/core.jar:lib/antlr.jar:lib/oro.jar:lib/registry.jar:lib/mrj.jar:/usr/share/java/RXTXcomm.jar
export CLASSPATH

# put the directory where this file lives in the front of the path, because
# that directory also contains jikes, which we will need at runtime.
PATH=`pwd`/tools:${PATH}
export PATH

# put the directory with the native RXTX libs in the library path
# Original: LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH

java processing.app.Base

(7) Launch the Arduino IDE by navigating to the arduino-0010 directory in a terminal and typing:

./arduino

(8) Learn! For more information about Arduino and learning electronics, see Ladyada’s (fabulous) Arduino Tutorial!