Deprecated

We no longer do this manually - instead please install using the board package manager https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-trinket

Trinket Arduino IDE Configuration for Linux

Configuration files for modifying the official Arduino IDE to program Trinket/Pro Trinket/Gemma/Flora on Linux.

Easy Installation

1. Download one of the modified Arduino IDE archives, unpack it, and run the Arduino IDE. For example to install the 64 bit version of the modified Arduino 1.0.5 IDE in your home directory execute:

   cd ~
   wget http://adafruit-download.s3.amazonaws.com/trinket-arduino-1.0.5-linux64.tgz
   tar xvfz trinket-arduino-1.0.5-linux64.tgz
   

   Or to install the 32 bit version of the modified Arduino 1.0.5 IDE execute:

   cd ~
   wget http://adafruit-download.s3.amazonaws.com/trinket-arduino-1.0.5-linux32.tgz
   tar xvfz trinket-arduino-1.0.5-linux32.tgz
   

2. Install the udev rule to support programming the boards as a non-root user. See step 4 of the manual installation step below for more information, but on Ubuntu execute these commands:

   wget https://github.com/adafruit/Trinket_Arduino_Linux/raw/master/adafruit-trinket.rules
   sudo cp adafruit-trinket.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
   sudo reload udev
   

3. Run the Arduino IDE downloaded in step 1! See step 5 of the manual installation steps below for more information on programming boards.

Manual Installation

1. Switch to a branch of this repository with the same version as the Arduino IDE you will modify. For example to clone this repository for Arduino 1.0.5 in your home directory execute:

   cd ~
   git clone -b 1.0.5 https://github.com/adafruit/Trinket_Arduino_Linux.git
   

2. Download the version of the Arduino IDE for Linux that matches the version number in the branch you cloned. You can use either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the Arduino IDE (depending on what your processor and OS support).

   See Arduino IDE downloads here: http://arduino.cc/en/main/software

   Then extract the contents of the Arduino IDE archive you downloaded and place it wherever you would like the IDE files to live permanently (such as your home directory).

   For example to download the 64-bit version of Arduino 1.0.5 and extract it in your home directory execute:

   cd ~
   wget http://arduino.googlecode.com/files/arduino-1.0.5-linux64.tgz
   tar xvfz arduino-1.0.5-linux64.tgz
   

3. Copy over the contents of the arduino-(version) directory from the Trinket__Arduino__Linux repository that was cloned in step 1 so it overwrites the files from the Arduino IDE downloaded in step 2. Make sure all files in the GitHub repository overwrite the files in the Arduino IDE!

   For example to copy the modified 1.0.5 configuration from step 1 over the Arduino IDE downloaded in step 2 execute:

   cd ~
   cp -rf ./Trinket_Arduino_Linux/arduino-1.0.5/. ./arduino-1.0.5/.
   

   Be careful to copy the command above exactly! The slashes and periods at the end of the paths are required to make the copy work as expected.

4. Finally install the included adafruit-trinket.rules udev file to allow you to run the Arduino IDE and program over USB as a non-root user. Note that this configuration is built for Ubuntu (12.04/14.04) but can likely be modified to work with other distributions by changing the GROUP="dialout" to a different group which identifies your non-root users.

   On Ubuntu copy the included adafruit-trinket.rules file to udev's configuration folder by executing:

   cd ~
   sudo cp ./Trinket_Arduino_Linux/adafruit-trinket.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
   

   Then reload udev's configuration by executing:

   sudo reload udev
   

5. That's it! Now run the downloaded and modified Arduino IDE and confirm the Trinket, Pro Trinket, Gemma, and Flora boards are listed in the Boards menu.

   Make sure when programming Trinket, Pro Trinket, Gemma, or Flora boards that you change the programmer to "USBtinyISP" in the Tools->Programmer menu!

   Try loading a simple blink example on your board. Make sure you press the board's reset button and confirm the bootloader LED is pulsing before you press the upload button.

   NOTE: When programming the Trinket or Gemma, which are based on the ATtiny85 processor, you might see errors such as the following during the upload:

   avrdude: error: usbtiny_receive: error sending control message: Protocol error (expected 4, got -71)
   

   These errors can be ignored and the upload should finish successfully. In general uploads to the ATtiny85 boards are a little flakey with Linux's USB core so you might need to try the upload a few times before it works.