I certainly want to explore SimpleIDE as another alternative, and I am currently working through the Linux installation instructions.
I am also going to install an alternative Linux on a spare notebook. I'd rather have BST to fall back on, even if I have SimpleIDE and the Propeller Tool.... at least until I confirm that ALL the features that Brad provided are available elsewhere. The original Propeller Tool did not provide compiler listings... and that and other added features are what made BST the 'go to and use' preference it has become.
At this point, I am not very sure about changing the OS keyboard selection would work. I don't actually have a special keyboard on one of the two computers that BST fails with, the other has a notebook keyboard... but has been a generic keyboard selection in Linux installation.
It maybe something in the source code that has made a non-standard keyboard choice. Brad Campbell hasn't done any new work on BST since 2010, so I am thinking he feels SimpleIDE will take over where he left off.
Don't worry about the VK codes as this is only a warning, I get the same thing on mine too and everything works fine:
peter@peter-XPS-L702X-LinuxMint15 ~ $ ./bst &
[1] 8031
peter@peter-XPS-L702X-LinuxMint15 ~ $
(bst:8031): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "adwaita",
(bst:8031): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "adwaita",
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated.
[WARNING] Out of OEM specific VK codes, changing to unassigned
[WARNING] Out of unassigned VK codes, assigning $FF
Okay.... And yet, BST still crashes in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
I am in the process of loading and testing alternative Linux Distros amongst the Top 4 of DistroWatch.com listings.
I sure hope that the French one does shun support in English.
Well... I'm on Mint 14 and have been pulling my hair out ... is this the same issue? Don't know... I'm (of course) doing things very differently.
First, I'm using my own Prop board (same reset circuit as prop plug). Second I'm programming with a Sparkfun FTDI breakout. Third I'm using minicom not the terminal monitor.
What happens is that I find that bst can no longer see the Prop after I've used minicom to view serial output. I typically have to unplug the FT232 board and plug it back in.
I'm not getting crashes of bst, though. Just the weirdness with serial. I'll have to try it with Windows and OS X and see what happens.
Have you tried going back to some slightly older versions of BST?
I seem to remember there was a problem with the very latest version of BST not working on some Linux or other but a version or two steps backwards was OK.
Why not use SimpleIDE? It uses the same compiler BSTC under the hood.
Well... I'm on Mint 14 and have been pulling my hair out ... is this the same issue? Don't know... I'm (of course) doing things very differently.
First, I'm using my own Prop board (same reset circuit as prop plug). Second I'm programming with a Sparkfun FTDI breakout. Third I'm using minicom not the terminal monitor.
What happens is that I find that bst can no longer see the Prop after I've used minicom to view serial output. I typically have to unplug the FT232 board and plug it back in.
I'm not getting crashes of bst, though. Just the weirdness with serial. I'll have to try it with Windows and OS X and see what happens.
Minicom will have control of the coms port and if you don't disconnect it before you get BST to talk to it then it won't work. I just type ^A P in Minicom to place it in port configuration mode which temporarily disconnects Minicom from the port. I then do my F11 thing in BST and flip back to Minicom and hit the escape to bring it back into terminal mode.
Just to clarify.... the issues with Minicom are NOT the same as the issues I have with BST in Ubuntu 12.-04LTS
A. Minicom will at times refuse to let go of a previous USB serial port allocation.
There are several ways to fix this, but I just reboot the Linux as I dread fooling around in low level files to do this kind of tweek.
Peter J apparently has a very easy quick solution Withn the Minicom. I wil have to try it.
B. The BST will always fail if you attempt to do a FIND with a .spin file open....
It does appear to be a Nautilus problem as I get request to inform Ubuntu of a Nautilus binary failure when an Ubuntu internal error message appears.
ALL that I have is bits and pieces. I cannot fix the B problem with such... so changing the Linux Distro seems to be the way out of B.
But for A., you can try using PuTTY, try using one of the many other Linux serial communications apps, or just learn to live with it.
Of course it would not be the first time I may have a misleading error message. It may be the Unity/Nautilus link that is broken and using a Gnome?Nautilus might work.
First I tried to remain in Ubuntu 12.04LTS, but modify the desktop to Gnome. I did something very, very wrong and while I did get Gnome Desktop... I could not make BST work propperly, and I lost all my serial port support - both minicom and PuTTY.
So having downloaded and burned a DVD of Mageia 3, I installed that and everything seems back in order.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For anyone that doesn't quite understand Linux and partitions, I have a 3 partition system - a root partition, a /home partition, and a Swap partition.
One can easily change distributions if /home is a separate partition and you make sure that it is not formatted and over-written in a reinstall. But you have to be careful to select your partitions and their options yourself, especial if you also have Windows installed as a dual boot.
The only snag in Mageia is you have to Uncheck the box that asks if you want to install the paid for features. I don't know what they are or where to get them, but trying to install them for free will cause the install to fail.
I vote for Debian.
After all, Ubutu is only taken from Debian unstable then tweaked and broken by Cannonical. They even have the nerve to ask for money for breaking it.
I can only agree. That is the ultimate fate of BST unless it BradC sees fit to open source it. Which seems very unlikely.
It's very sad. BST has served us well for such a long time, introducing features that have become indispensable to some. BST will be missed.
That doesn't change the fact that I hate to see people using Ubuntu when they could be using Debian from which is drived and often twisted into a broken version.
For now, I have decided I can live with and learn Mageia 3.... but it is not what I had hoped for and I simply should have investigated the LiveCD version before loading.
I was considering just rolling back to an older Ubuntu that worked. That is not simple. The installation upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04LTS seemed to have upgraded my file systems from EXT3 to EXT4, and that makes rolling back to an older Ubuntu a bit more complex. At the very least, I have to rsynch an image of /home to another computer... install the older Ubuntu with an empty /home and then rsynch the image back into the reinstalled older Ubuntu.
Not too bad.
But now, Mageia 3 has apparently moved or duplicaed my Desktop in the /home partition. So it is go slow and stay with it until I am clear on what I really want for another Linux distro. Debian certainly looks like a saner long-term choice than Ubuntu or Mageia. I am not to sure about Mint 15 as I really would like full Chinese language support.
The main points are
A. Mageia does support bst.
B. Mageia will install minicom.
C. Mageia will load the Propeller directly via bst
D. Mageia may not support the Serial terminal tool in bst.
And of course, the obvious Unbutu 12.04LTS is broken for bst use.
Where on earth did you dig up Mageia?
I was wondering what it is, turns out to be a revival of the old Mandriva which was Mandrake before. What a mess.
It's French anyway so we will have no truck with that:)
Where on earth did you dig up Mageia?
I was wondering what it is, turns out to be a revival of the old Mandriva which was Mandrake before. What a mess.
It's French anyway so we will have no truck with that:)
Loopy likes to be adventurous and get into trouble, I think he likes it that way, all that attention and all......
For some reason that I personally cannot fathom at this point, Mageia has risen to #2 in DistroWatch.com in the past 6 months... so I simply thought it was a rising star.
I just decided to avoid Mint 15 and it does not support Asian language input... and Mageia claims it can.
I started with Ubuntu back in the 9.xx era and have loved it, but Unity has indeed turned the corner. Aside from not liking the interface and loosing the use of bst, it had begun to run significantly slower.
At least Mageia runs quickly.
I suppose I am adventurous, but liking to get into trouble is not true. But someone has to Beta test all that world throws at us.
Now I am beginning to wonder if DistroWatch.com is no longer reliable.
For some reason that I personally cannot fathom at this point, Mageia has risen to #2 in DistroWatch.com in the past 6 months... so I simply thought it was a rising star.
I just decided to avoid Mint 15 and it does not support Asian language input... and Mageia claims it can.
I started with Ubuntu back in the 9.xx era and have loved it, but Unity has indeed turned the corner. Aside from not liking the interface and loosing the use of bst, it had begun to run significantly slower.
At least Mageia runs quickly.
I suppose I am adventurous, but liking to get into trouble is not true. But someone has to Beta test all that world throws at us.
Now I am beginning to wonder if DistroWatch.com is no longer reliable.
You can't just look at the DistroWatch top 100 and surmise that a high rank is a good thing. What happens is that the distros are ranked according to downloads and when there's a new distro then there are a lot of downloads and the rank goes up. Because the rank goes up many think it's worthwhile downloading, and so the rank goes up further. How do you tell if it is any good? Just download it and try Seriously though I really recommend Linux Mint and in your case LMDE and with either one go for the Cinnamon desktop. I've tried hundreds of distros and desktops and some are very enticing but not quite there yet. I also use VirtualBox with a WINXP image for those apps that need 100% Windows compatibility but otherwise everything as native as possible, medit instead of gedit (can't stand the odd keyboard shortcuts etc of gedit). Minicom for the terminal, Cinnamon for the desktop with a ScreenShot applet etc. LibreOffice for docs (as well as Google), drawings, etc and GThumb for normal graphics and Gimp for advanced graphics. Firefox with Tab Mix Plus and TabGroups Manager (I have hundreds of tabs open) and DownThemAll just to name a few.
Hi Peter J,
Lesson learned... While it was easy to load Mageia 3, and it does have an FTDI driver in the kernel.... I can't seem to reach ttyUSB0 via Brad's Spin Tool or minicom... both are installed.
I can make minicom work, but only in SU and it still won't reach the ttyUSB0 port. I even tried bst in SU... no go.
Mint 15 or Debian seem the wisest. ... maybe forget the Chinese.
As far as I can tell Mageia is a fork of Mandriva which was created from MandrakeLinux which was originally just "Mandrake" until some clown (literally) quibbled about trade mark violation. All very confusing.
Anyway, I seem to remember that Mandrake was always a front runner on DistroWatch so it's a bit less surprising it is still there under a different name. today.
As for DistroWatch monitoring down loads, I can see how that might be a bit skew. For example I have machines here that have just rolled on with updates from the Debian Lenny release through Squeeze and now Wheezy. No actual distro download required. Ubuntu on the other hand seems to bugger itself up like Windows over time so it's best to nuke it and start again with a new version. Hence huge download numbers.
I don't think Distrowatch monitors download numbers at all. From their web page:
The DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking statistics are a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more.
(elsewhere they go on to explain that due to abuse they count anyone IP address only once per day. That still leaves room for robotic scripts.)
I loaded Linux Mint 15 and everything is back to working. Peter J is once again ahead of the curve with good advice.
Mageia 3 is a bit odd, and I couldn't get the USB to Propeller programing to work. It all came up quicked in Mint 15, but I did have to log into miniciom via a sudo to make sure.
I really am looking forward to using SimpleIDE, but I am in the midst of a project that was moving a long in bst and didn't really want another set of learning issues.
I loaded Linux Mint 15 and everything is back to working. Peter J is once again ahead of the curve with good advice.
Mageia 3 is a bit odd, and I couldn't get the USB to Propeller programing to work. It all came up quicked in Mint 15, but I did have to log into miniciom via a sudo to make sure.
I really am looking forward to using SimpleIDE, but I am in the midst of a project that was moving a long in bst and didn't really want another set of learning issues.
Thanks all.
Finally, at least you learnt a few things along the way.....
Now you are very close but you need to add your account to the serial group etc. Even though I use Cinnamon desktop there are some utlities from others that are worthwhile, like kuser, so install it and assign yourself to the relevant groups (ALT-F2 gksudo kuser). This also works for VirtualBox groups as well. I may have done some chmods and chowns but I will check and get back to you if you still have trouble.
Mint 15 is working fine with all the legacy stuff I have from Ubuntu 12.04LTS.
Mageia 3 did NOT support several important items for me. I have a lot of important personal notes in Tomboy.
Oddly Mint 15 is now providing me with time and dates in Chinese format... even though I thought that the Chinese language support was minimal. It may be a configuration glitch, but I can easily live with it or fix.
******
Yes, I need to have my login name included in the communications group to not have to do a sudo to use the minicom and bst serial terminal.
But Mageia 3 was not even allows a me to use sudo. And as a su user, I still couldn't make minicom or putty work. There was obviously more to be done to get the USB to Propeller working and it really wasn't worth the effort as Mageia 3 doesn't have a good online repository. IOW, I would have to compile from source code to get a lot of the Linux goodies that I explore from time to time via Synaptic.
Comments
Don't worry about the VK codes as this is only a warning, I get the same thing on mine too and everything works fine:
peter@peter-XPS-L702X-LinuxMint15 ~ $ ./bst &
[1] 8031
peter@peter-XPS-L702X-LinuxMint15 ~ $
(bst:8031): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "adwaita",
(bst:8031): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "adwaita",
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated.
[WARNING] Out of OEM specific VK codes, changing to unassigned
[WARNING] Out of unassigned VK codes, assigning $FF
I am in the process of loading and testing alternative Linux Distros amongst the Top 4 of DistroWatch.com listings.
I sure hope that the French one does shun support in English.
First, I'm using my own Prop board (same reset circuit as prop plug). Second I'm programming with a Sparkfun FTDI breakout. Third I'm using minicom not the terminal monitor.
What happens is that I find that bst can no longer see the Prop after I've used minicom to view serial output. I typically have to unplug the FT232 board and plug it back in.
I'm not getting crashes of bst, though. Just the weirdness with serial. I'll have to try it with Windows and OS X and see what happens.
I seem to remember there was a problem with the very latest version of BST not working on some Linux or other but a version or two steps backwards was OK.
Why not use SimpleIDE? It uses the same compiler BSTC under the hood.
A. Minicom will at times refuse to let go of a previous USB serial port allocation.
There are several ways to fix this, but I just reboot the Linux as I dread fooling around in low level files to do this kind of tweek.
Peter J apparently has a very easy quick solution Withn the Minicom. I wil have to try it.
B. The BST will always fail if you attempt to do a FIND with a .spin file open....
It does appear to be a Nautilus problem as I get request to inform Ubuntu of a Nautilus binary failure when an Ubuntu internal error message appears.
ALL that I have is bits and pieces. I cannot fix the B problem with such... so changing the Linux Distro seems to be the way out of B.
But for A., you can try using PuTTY, try using one of the many other Linux serial communications apps, or just learn to live with it.
@Peter - the issue occurs after I've exited minicom. See Loopy's note A.
And I get something negative in the System Manager that seems to indicate a Nautilus problem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_(file_manager)
Of course it would not be the first time I may have a misleading error message. It may be the Unity/Nautilus link that is broken and using a Gnome?Nautilus might work.
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/classicgnome
PROGRESS FINALLY ! ! ! ! !
*************************************************************************************************************
First I tried to remain in Ubuntu 12.04LTS, but modify the desktop to Gnome. I did something very, very wrong and while I did get Gnome Desktop... I could not make BST work propperly, and I lost all my serial port support - both minicom and PuTTY.
So having downloaded and burned a DVD of Mageia 3, I installed that and everything seems back in order.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For anyone that doesn't quite understand Linux and partitions, I have a 3 partition system - a root partition, a /home partition, and a Swap partition.
One can easily change distributions if /home is a separate partition and you make sure that it is not formatted and over-written in a reinstall. But you have to be careful to select your partitions and their options yourself, especial if you also have Windows installed as a dual boot.
The only snag in Mageia is you have to Uncheck the box that asks if you want to install the paid for features. I don't know what they are or where to get them, but trying to install them for free will cause the install to fail.
I suppose, I should go with Mint or Debian, or just roll back my Ubuntu to 11.xx. This is not what I expected.
After all, Ubutu is only taken from Debian unstable then tweaked and broken by Cannonical. They even have the nerve to ask for money for breaking it.
Debian with KDE Plasma Desktop is quite OK.
Sooner or later the last Linux-distro will be incompatible with the the libs BST expects.
You just gain some time for still sticking to BST, in parallel you lose time searching for an alternative...
BST IS DEAD!
Amen!
It's very sad. BST has served us well for such a long time, introducing features that have become indispensable to some. BST will be missed.
That doesn't change the fact that I hate to see people using Ubuntu when they could be using Debian from which is drived and often twisted into a broken version.
I was considering just rolling back to an older Ubuntu that worked. That is not simple. The installation upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04LTS seemed to have upgraded my file systems from EXT3 to EXT4, and that makes rolling back to an older Ubuntu a bit more complex. At the very least, I have to rsynch an image of /home to another computer... install the older Ubuntu with an empty /home and then rsynch the image back into the reinstalled older Ubuntu.
Not too bad.
But now, Mageia 3 has apparently moved or duplicaed my Desktop in the /home partition. So it is go slow and stay with it until I am clear on what I really want for another Linux distro. Debian certainly looks like a saner long-term choice than Ubuntu or Mageia. I am not to sure about Mint 15 as I really would like full Chinese language support.
The main points are
A. Mageia does support bst.
B. Mageia will install minicom.
C. Mageia will load the Propeller directly via bst
D. Mageia may not support the Serial terminal tool in bst.
And of course, the obvious Unbutu 12.04LTS is broken for bst use.
I was wondering what it is, turns out to be a revival of the old Mandriva which was Mandrake before. What a mess.
It's French anyway so we will have no truck with that:)
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1158
http://www.eweek.com/cloud/oracle-microsoft-ready-to-link-their-fortunes-in-the-cloud/
I just decided to avoid Mint 15 and it does not support Asian language input... and Mageia claims it can.
http://distrowatch.com/
I started with Ubuntu back in the 9.xx era and have loved it, but Unity has indeed turned the corner. Aside from not liking the interface and loosing the use of bst, it had begun to run significantly slower.
At least Mageia runs quickly.
I suppose I am adventurous, but liking to get into trouble is not true. But someone has to Beta test all that world throws at us.
Now I am beginning to wonder if DistroWatch.com is no longer reliable.
You can't just look at the DistroWatch top 100 and surmise that a high rank is a good thing. What happens is that the distros are ranked according to downloads and when there's a new distro then there are a lot of downloads and the rank goes up. Because the rank goes up many think it's worthwhile downloading, and so the rank goes up further. How do you tell if it is any good? Just download it and try
Lesson learned... While it was easy to load Mageia 3, and it does have an FTDI driver in the kernel.... I can't seem to reach ttyUSB0 via Brad's Spin Tool or minicom... both are installed.
I can make minicom work, but only in SU and it still won't reach the ttyUSB0 port. I even tried bst in SU... no go.
Mint 15 or Debian seem the wisest. ... maybe forget the Chinese.
Anyway, I seem to remember that Mandrake was always a front runner on DistroWatch so it's a bit less surprising it is still there under a different name. today.
As for DistroWatch monitoring down loads, I can see how that might be a bit skew. For example I have machines here that have just rolled on with updates from the Debian Lenny release through Squeeze and now Wheezy. No actual distro download required. Ubuntu on the other hand seems to bugger itself up like Windows over time so it's best to nuke it and start again with a new version. Hence huge download numbers.
(elsewhere they go on to explain that due to abuse they count anyone IP address only once per day. That still leaves room for robotic scripts.)
-Tor
Mageia 3 is a bit odd, and I couldn't get the USB to Propeller programing to work. It all came up quicked in Mint 15, but I did have to log into miniciom via a sudo to make sure.
I really am looking forward to using SimpleIDE, but I am in the midst of a project that was moving a long in bst and didn't really want another set of learning issues.
Thanks all.
Now you are very close but you need to add your account to the serial group etc. Even though I use Cinnamon desktop there are some utlities from others that are worthwhile, like kuser, so install it and assign yourself to the relevant groups (ALT-F2 gksudo kuser). This also works for VirtualBox groups as well. I may have done some chmods and chowns but I will check and get back to you if you still have trouble.
Mageia 3 did NOT support several important items for me. I have a lot of important personal notes in Tomboy.
Oddly Mint 15 is now providing me with time and dates in Chinese format... even though I thought that the Chinese language support was minimal. It may be a configuration glitch, but I can easily live with it or fix.
******
Yes, I need to have my login name included in the communications group to not have to do a sudo to use the minicom and bst serial terminal.
But Mageia 3 was not even allows a me to use sudo. And as a su user, I still couldn't make minicom or putty work. There was obviously more to be done to get the USB to Propeller working and it really wasn't worth the effort as Mageia 3 doesn't have a good online repository. IOW, I would have to compile from source code to get a lot of the Linux goodies that I explore from time to time via Synaptic.
And so........... you are right.