How to start

I don't know whether it is strictly necessary for the PIERIN, but in general, when serial connections are used it is advisable to add the user to the dialout and tty groups. This is possible using the shell commands:

sudo adduser USER_NAME dialout

sudo adduser USER_NAME tty

Sometimes this change will not be immediately accepted by the system, so it is prudent to repeat the login. It is possible to use the command group, that returns the list of groups to which a user belongs, to understand whether the changes have been accepted. Some Linux distributions, 64 bit (like Ubuntu), do not install the libraries needed to make the 32 bit programs working. In this case it is possible to install them manually through these commands:

sudo apt-get install libc6:i386

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

How to download files

You will have to download these two Linux files

MPLAB ® X IDE v1.80

MPLAB ® XC8 Compiler v1.12

using this page from the Microchip website:

http://www.microchip.com/pagehandler/en-us/family/mplabx/#downloads

Usually they will be downloaded in this folder:

/home/USER_NAME/Download

How to install MPLABX

Using the shell, you have to reach the folder where files have been downloaded. Now you have to accord the execute access to the MPLAX file, using the command:

chmod +x MPLABX-v1_80-linux-installer.run

Now you can double check, using the command ls -l whether the file acquired the "X" attribute (executable).

Schermata del 2013-06-13 10:40:07.png

Finally you can launch the installation with:

sudo ./MPLABX-v1_80-linux-installer.run

Now a dialog window will come up driving you through the installation process.

You will have to agree to the license, then you can choose the folder where the application will be installed. At the end of the installation program you will be asked to reboot the system.

Afterwards you will have got two new icons: "MPLAB IDE" and "MPLAB IPE".

Done!!

How to install the XC8 compiler

The file xc8-v1_12-linux.tar is an archive whence you have to extract the ".run" executable file.

You can do it from the desktop or from the shell, using the command:

tar -xf xc8-v1_12-linux.tar

It's possible to check whether the file xc8-v1.12-linux.run is executable

permesso.png

It is possible to launch it using the command:

sudo ./xc8-v1.12-linux.run

Now the usual nagscreen will come up with the license agreement to agree with and the choice of the installation type you like.

4_.png

I installed the free version.

Note: The "sudo" prefix is used to execute commands with the administrator privilege; but not all Linux distributions use this system. In this case it will be necessary to log in as root, using the command su.

I tested this installation procedure with Ubuntu and Suse and, with both operating system, it was successfully completed.

Ok, let's say that the easy part has been done!

Now we have to understand how to use these programs!