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Software development: Arduino IDE installation

  

The Arduino IDE is a free/opensource software development tool that can be used for the development of a derivative form of C++ code, as well as managing its download into the memory of a wide range of microcontrollers, including the ESP8266 and ESP32.

The IDE programming language, producing what is called a 'sketch', is based upon the C/C++ programming languages but the IDE has many simplifications and special usage methods to support the IDE's primary purpose i.e. to 'load' compiled code into microcontroller boards e.g.  many Arduino boards use an Atmel microcontroller that only runs what is called the AVR instruction set. This blog post provides some more useful background on the IDE programming language.

For an individual's home use the latest version of the IDE can be downloaded from: https://www.arduino.cc/en/software with versions available for Windows, MacOS, and 64 bit Linux machines, but the 'main stream' version (at 2.3.5 in April '25) no longer supports Linux ARM 32 bit machines and the newer versions of the IDE are considered to be too resource intensive for the lower powered Raspberry Pi. However scrolling further down the IDE download page (almost at the end!) there is a Legacy IDE (1.8.X) section where the no longer supported 1.8.19 version can be downloaded.

To install the IDE on a Raspberry Pi running the Raspberry Pi OS (a Debian OS derivative) you could just use the standard 'apt' install command i.e. 
  sudo apt-get install arduino  

BUT depending upon how up-to-date the apt repository is, it may install a particularly old version - so a more 'manual' method is recommended for the Raspberry Pi as follows:

  • from a browser running on the Raspberry Pi, download the Legacy (no longer supported!) Linux ARM 32 bit version 1.8.19 which will normally put a compressed .xz file in the Raspberry Pi's /Downloads folder. 
  • then run the following commands in a Terminal window:
    • cd Downloads/
    • tar -xf arduino-1.8.19-linuxarm.tar.xz
    • sudo mv arduino-1.8.19 /opt
    • sudo /opt/arduino-1.8.19/install.sh

  
Once completed these steps create a link to the IDE under the Raspberry Pi's main menu i.e.  Menu > Programming

In this method the code is extracted from its downloaded compressed file and moved to the /opt folder, where it is then 'installed'. The /opt folder is only used 'by convention', since on a Raspberry Pi this is where 'whole' packages provided by an independent third party software distributor are usually stored.

 

 

All the currently available maker project information: