Installing SimpleIDE on a Raspberry Pi
CodeDragon57
Posts: 5
Hey guys, I got a Propeller 1 from the University of North Alabama after attending STEM camp there in 2016. It’s been awhile since I’ve messed with the board, but I’ve recently been inspired to tinker with it again. When I first got it, the professor told me to buy a Raspberry Pi since I didn’t own my own computer; so I originally ran SimpleIDE on 32-bit Rasbian 9 Stetch. However, I’ve struggled with installing SimpleIDE on modern versions of Raspberry Pi OS with modern hardware. It seems to be caused by the repositories having newer versions of SimpleIDE’s dependencies that is preventing it from being able to run. Has anyone else had any luck installing SimpleIDE on a Raspberry Pi 4 with the latest 64-bit version of Raspberry Pi OS?
Comments
Somewhere in the process, it should show which lib(s) need to be installed to make SimpleIDE run as designed. At the moment I cannot remember which lib(s) it needs. Parallax is tapering off its support for SimpleIDE, not sure why, I still think they sell a lot of Activity boards.
Ray
Yeah. I am fairly familiar with Linux (thanks in large part to this board and the professor/university that gave it to me). I can’t remember what Libs are missing either, but the problem is that SimpleIDE is so old and unmaintained that the libs in the repository are newer than the libs compatible with SimpleIDE.
Can I program on this board without SimpleIDE? Perhaps could I even use CLion as long as I have the Simple libraries? It’s been so long since I’ve messed with this board that I don’t remember much about it.
For a maintained C there is FlexProp - https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/170730/flexprop-a-complete-programming-system-for-p2-and-p1/p1
and Catalina - https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/174158/catalina-ansi-c-for-the-propeller-1-2/p1
There is also a VSCode effort that uses the FlexC compiler - https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/173429/visual-studio-code-supports-p2-development-on-windows-mac-linux-yes-rpi/p1
I decided to stick with the Activity WX and WiFi for my projects, at the moment, and SimpleIDE on Windows. Maybe, by magic, jazzed, will show up again and enhance SimpleIDE, not holding my breath though.
Ray
@evanh
Thanks for the info! If I were to use something like VSCode + extension or even CLion (with or without any extension it may have) what all would I need or is it already documented in those forum links?
Or really, I was 16 (June 2016) when I first used my P1. I do not remember much about it. We used what I now believe was C; but more knowledgable me doesn’t understand where some of the syntax is from other than maybe a C library we were using , and also I remember running it brought up a special console (which I assume was some sort of custom serial console - which is probably why libftdi is a dependency). Since it seems that SimpleIDE is being deprecated, I don’t know where to start - especially since it seems all the documentation references SimpleIDE.
I'm happy enough using Bash and Kate as pre-installed in Kubuntu. So best to ask your IDE questions in those links.
PS: I compile my C sources and Spin sources with "flexspin" compiler and load the Propeller 1 using "proploader" and Propeller 2 using "loadp2" serial downloaders.
@evanh
My questions weren’t IDE specific. My questions would apply if I were using a text editor like Kate (or Vim). Perhaps I phrased it unclearly. I tried to clarify with that blurb I edited in at the end. What I am trying to ask you actually kinda answered:
@evanh where did you get “flexpspin” and “proploader”?
FlexProp IDE uses both underneath so they're in that package.
Flexspin also has its own discussion topic - https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/164187/flexspin-compiler-for-p2-assembly-spin-basic-and-c-in-one-compiler/p1
If you're into contributing to or bisecting Flexspin bugs then a
git clone https://github.com/totalspectrum/spin2cppwill get you started.PS: flexspin, flexcc, and spin2cpp are all the same compiler.