After purchasing a Teensy 3.1 from pjrc.com and attempting to install their add-on software to the Arduino package already shipping with Xubuntu (an Ubuntu derivative and including the same issues in both distros), I thought I’d create a few notes to speed things along for others as the Teensy add-on is not directly (or indirectly, apparently) compatible with the Arduino IDE package provided by Ubuntu / Xubuntu. Note that I’m running Xubuntu 15.04 but I would expect similar issues with nearly any Ubuntu distro at any revision.

First, in order to speed things up and simplify installation, it’s probably easiest to use install the included Arduino package from Xubuntu.

sudo apt-get install arduino

This will also install a few other libraries and support files.

Go to System -> Users and Groups and add yourself to the Dialout group (this allows access to the serial ports). Logout or reboot so the group change can take effect.

Run Arduino so it can go ahead and create its infrastructure. If you have an Arduino, go ahead and test it to make sure the basic installation works as Teensy requires the Arduino IDE to be fully functional.

Now, remove the arduino IDE. However, do not use the autoremove feature suggested after you’ve removed the package unless you’re going to manually reinstall the various required files.

From pjrc.com, download the Teensy Linux installer (.32bits or .64bits file) and the udev rules file. From www.arduino.cc, download the latest Linux file; it’s in a .xz format.

Pick an empty working directory (I use ~/Work) and decompress the arduino .xz file. After decompressing, untar the archive and copy the resultant directory to /usr/share. Finally, rename /usr/share/arduino-xxx to /usr/share/arduino. Note where sudo must be used as normal users cannot directly write to /usr/share.

xz -d arduinoxxx.tar.xz

tar xvf arduinoxxx.tar

sudo cp arduinoxxx /usr/share/

sudo mv /usr/share/arduinoxxx /usr/share/arduino

Now, create a symlink in /usr/bin that will allow running arduino from the command line. You can add this to the menus later after all steps are complete and working.

sudo ln -s /usr/share/arduino/arduino /usr/bin/arduino

Run arduino from anywhere on the command line. You should see the standard splash screen instead of the different one included as part of the standard Ubuntu package.

Once everything is working properly from the basic arduino installation, exit and install the rules file for the teensy and the add-ons to the Arduino IDE.

sudo cp 49-teensy.rules /etc/udev/rules.d

sudo chmod +x teensyduino.64bit  <this modifies the .64bit or .32bit file to allow execution>

sudo ./teensyduino.64bit

Note you must prefix the teensyduino.64bit with the ./ or it will not run. Navigate to /usr/share/arduino and you should see the Next button become enabled, recognizing that you are in the correct Arduino IDE location. If the Next button fails to enable, hit the help (?) button and see what is missing in order to resolve the issue. After Next, click Install, and finally Done.

At this point, you should be able to start arduino, connect your Teensy, select it from the Board menu, and begin tinkering with it.

Note that I am in no way an expert on Teensy or Arduino. I’ll be happy to try to help, but my current work area is almost nothing and I have very limited ability to build any significant projects.

Hope this helps; it wasn’t very intuitive for me and took a couple of hours to sort. If this shaves some time off for anyone, it’ll be worth it.

Starting with Xubuntu 14.10 (I think) I found that my favorite backup program, FreeFileSync, was not as easily installed via ppa as it had been in earlier versions. The getdeb repository contains this and many other programs but I had reason to wonder whether this would continue to be supported long-term. A few days ago I found grsync, a GTK-based interface to the venerable (but extremely powerful) rsync utility. Today, I put this to the true test: I needed to copy all of my user data from the exFat partition that I setup from my old Xubuntu Linux box to my completely newly formatted Xubuntu 15.04 box. See previous posts for details of the exFat fail. I copied about 800 GB of data during 1 session then copied the remaining 200 GB of data during another session. I first ran a simulation, though, as I was concerned about grsync’s ability to recover where it left off and not start from scratch or otherwise dump a bunch of data. Turns out, it scanned for several minutes but then happily continued from its previous location in the restore, with no fuss. I think I’ve found a new friend.

Of course, YMMV.

I thought I’d finally found a great option with exFat. I was preparing to migrate to my MacBook 2010 and Mac OS X Yosemite for a while in preparation for taking some classes. I transferred my user files (about 1 TB) to a shiny new 2 TB USB drive after freshly formatting it with exFat file system. My MacBook installs with 10.6.2 but exFat isn’t compatible with that version. No problem, I updated to 10.6.8 to be able to quickly access some needed files (Little Snitch, etc). As it turns out, Apple has chosen to implement only part of the exFat specification in that you must format to 1024 cluster size (or less, apparently) for the system to work. If you happened to be unaware of this restriction and allowed your Xubuntu 14.10 box to choose its default (4096), you’re screwed. No way around it, you’ll need to copy all of those files off via Linux (or, presumably, Windows) to another drive formatted to the correct cluster size. Trying to do this through VirtualBox with a fresh virtual machine containing Xubuntu 15.04 and all the correct drivers resulted in a number of crashes. I finally decided that it was going to be easier to simply continue taking classes with a virtual Windows installation rather than screwing around with yet another Apple-imposed restriction. The hardware and software are generally great and rarely crash, but trying to do anything out of the box that Apple defines can result in some pretty large fails.

Summary: If you’re going to share exFat file system in order to be compatible between multiple platforms, make damn sure you read the implementations available for each OS.

Christianity is blind to the fact that most Christian holidays occur near or on Pagan holidays. These days were chosen to help convert existing Pagans to Christianity as they coincide with existing holidays and, therefore, provide minimal interference with traditions already established.

Christianity is blind to the fact that many (many) other gods share similar characteristics, stories, etc., with Jesus and/or Yahweh. In fact, a number of pantheons or belief systems pre-date Christianity by hundreds of years, yet have very similar beliefs in terms of history and progression. For example, see Zoroastrianism. Even the Greek gods share many pantheon similarities to God, Jesus, and various aspects of Christianity.

Christianity is blind to the concept of the word “theory.” For those who are uninformed or unaware (but willing to listen), theory in a science context relates to an understanding that has been proven to exist or has failed to be refuted. As an example, gravity is only a theory. However, there has been nothing to prove that it is not accurate with certain very specific exceptions. Likewise, the theory of evolution has been proven many, many times in many ways to be correct. Yes, there are gaps that are not yet explained, but to say that “God did it…” actually makes you look like an intellectual dunce rather than an enlightened believer.

Christianity is blind to love. While brotherly love is a core concept (it seems), this generally applies only within the context of other Christians and has little to do with those outside the Christian faith.

Some corporate entities are now permitted rights normally associated with persons. As an immediate example, a corporate entity is permitted to control its employee and customer rights relating to religion, gender identity, etc. What was the cost to buy those rights? Most of us (corporate and person) are subject to the law of the land and are not permitted to discriminate against those of opposing religions, identity, or any one of a number of categories. However, certain corporations now have the right to discriminate against customers and employees that do not fit their desired demographic. If you’re gay, atheist (or of the wrong religion), etc., you have no right to your personal rights but are subject to their interpretation. Bigot or not, they are now permitted to act as a private citizen in relation to your rights. They can discriminate against you without fear of reprisal, they can fire you or refuse service, lodging, housing, etc., based solely on whether they agree with your outlook or lifestyle. Ultimately, we will suffer at their hands and the hands of the Supreme Court, based solely on the fact that we don’t agree. The intelligence (or lack thereof) behind their arguments doesn’t matter, we will simply be forced to conform or suffer the consequences.

Finished finals last week for another session, taking the next session off. Only a few classes left until I have a CIS BS degree. Unfortunately, the school requires a public speaking class that is nearly impossible to accomplish online due to the video requirements (4 videos with at least 5 adult audience members). Looking at some DSST testing instead to complete this requirement. The rest shouldn’t be too bad.

While attempting to copy files from my Linux Ext4 partition (separate drive) into Mac OS X (10.10), Paragon’s ExtFS really screwed the pooch. The system reset at some point with the result that the drive would boot but not load properly (I was attempting to copy files from my Linux drive to my MacBook via external USB connection). As it turns out, booting in recovery mode allowed me to FSCK the drive, but not automagically. I had to use a root shell and then manually run fsck to recover the drive. There were several files that weren’t cleaned up as well as a couple of corrupted inodes and an invalid number of free blocks (probably from the other corruption). Thanks to Paragon, I’m completely over using the MacBook now, as well as any product branded with their name. I like Linux better anyway, so no big loss, but I did have some stuff that would have done better on the MacBook.

As Dogbert would say, “meh” (with dismissive hand-wave).

Midterms today (well, yesterday I guess). Crappy scores, need to learn to read the questions better. Same as grade school, junior high, and high school. Sigh…

Anyway, about 5 classes left until bachelor’s degree. Now I need to pick out a Master’s degree. Candace might have beaten me to the doctorate, but I still want one… Several cousins have master’s degrees, can’t wait to have one myself. Basket-weaving? Perhaps the ubiquitous general studies? We’ll have to wait and see… Probably an MBA or Engineering Systems Management.

Well, several classes finished since the last update, looks like they went pretty well. Looking forward to starting Networking (need it for work) and Statistics (need it for some reason). Main problem now is a communications class that I can’t possibly complete, so off to the CLEP version. Who has time to record 3 video presentations and many other small assignments? I think I’ll go for the single 3 to 5 minute presentation and a bunch of questions instead.