[sf-lug] Linux Mint arduino install issue - not able to update to newer version

[Akkana Peck]

Frantisek Apfelbeck writes:
> I'm actually not sure how well is Linux Mint or Ubuntu tuned with
> Arduino, I have seen I think in one article from few months ago
> quite a disappointment on the topic.

My experience (admittedly a habit formed several years ago) has been
that distro packages for the arduino software usually run way
behind, so I always download from arduino.cc if I need an up-to-date
version. The arduino.cc version has always worked fine for me on
Debian and Ubuntu. I mostly use the arduino libraries along with
command-line utilities avr-c++ and avrdude (installed from the
distro packages with apt-get), but I fire up the java UI
occasionally (mostly for demonstrations and classes) and it
works fine with the distro sun-java packages.

It's easier to install on Linux than on Windows -- I have to install
it on Windows now and then for labs that don't offer a choice of OS,
and there are always issues I have to worry about that aren't a
problem on Linux.

	...Akkana