Using Arduino Alvik on Fedora Linux
[THIS IS A DRAFT DOCUMENT, POSTED FOR REFERENCE, IT MAY BE UPDATED]
This is mostly a collection of scattered notes. I place them here, as I use the device only occasionally and from different laptops, hence I always end up wasting time troubleshooting issues. The most annoying - at least on Linux - are port permission issues, as IDEs and such just give generic errors and forums will send you through all sorts of unrelated side quests for resetting the device, etc. If you’re on Linux, before trying anything else, just check the “Fix port issues” section below.
Preliminary issues
Battery
- check battery status:
- green led means battery fully charged
- blinking red light means battery charging
- no lights on, and there’s a blinking orange light next to the QWIIC connector: faulty battery
Connecting
Fix port issues
On Fedora, at least, the default user will not have access to the needed ports.
You can see by first checking which groups have access to the port:
ls -l /dev/ttyACM*
And then see which groups your user is a member of:
groups
You will likely see that your user is not part of dialout.
So add yourself to dialout, log out, and log back in.
sudo usermod -aG dialout $USER
This should fix it even after reboot.
Notice that you may still have issues if you rely on software installed via Flatpaks. See this post on the Fedora forums for reference.
For a quick fix, consider just giving full access to that port, if you feel there are no other concerns sudo chmod a+rw /dev/ttyACM0
Mlink
https://mblock.makeblock.com/en/download/mlink/
Updating the firmware
There are apparently two ways to go about it:
- through the dedicated web page using a supported browser (e.g. Chrome, Firefox not supported)
- through the Arduino IDE web page
User manuals and tutorials
User manual
https://docs.arduino.cc/tutorials/alvik/user-manual/
Getting Started
Arduino IDE
Arduino Lab for Micropython
https://labs.arduino.cc/en/labs/micropython
There are two main versions, one often found simply as Arduino IDE, the other as Arduino IDE V2. Both are available as Flatpaks via Flathub.
Arduino IDE 1
https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/360019833020-Download-and-install-Arduino-IDE
Troubleshooting
MicroPython installer
https://docs.arduino.cc/micropython/first-steps/install-guide/
Available on the GitHub repo, compiled as a package for Debian, but not for Fedora; can be built from source: https://github.com/arduino/lab-micropython-installer
Utilities
Check battery status
from arduino_alvik import ArduinoAlvik
from time import sleep_ms
import sys
alvik = ArduinoAlvik()
alvik.begin()
alvik.print_status()
