Programming PIC under Ubuntu

[Shane]

I was looking for a method to program a PIC under Ubuntu and here is the way to do it. No, you don't need MPLab

First we will have to install following tools.

1. gputils – a collection of tools for the Microchip (TM) PIC microcontrollers. It includes gpasm, gplink and gplib.
2. sdcc – small device C compiler
3. piklab – an integrated development environment (IDE) for applications based on Microchip PIC and dsPIC microcontrollers similar to the MPLAB environment. It integrates with several compiler and assembler toolchains. It supports the most common programmers (serial, parallel, ICD2, Pickit2, Picstart+), the ICD2 debugger, and several bootloaders (Tiny, Pickit2 and Picdem).

The installation that I will describe here was only tested in a 64 bit architecture but I will provide the links for a 32 bit architecture as well. If you try it then please let me know if it works or not in order to update this “How To”.
So, let’s start by installing the most easy stuff.

1. Install Alien. Alien is a program that converts between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and slackware tgz file formats. If you want to use a package from another distribution other than the one you have installed, you can use alien to convert it. Since piklab is a kde application and there is no deb package available for Ubuntu Oneiric, we’ll have to convert a rpm package to deb.

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get install alien

2. Install sdcc and gputils

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get install sdcc
   sudo apt-get install gputils

3. Install piklab and its dependencies. Some of the required dependencies have to be downloaded manually from launchpad, since they are not available through synaptic or apt-get. If you are running an amd64 architecture run the following commands

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get install kdelibs5-data
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68040450/kdelibs-data_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_all.deb
   sudo dpkg -i kdelibs-data_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_all.deb
   sudo apt-get install libqt3-mt
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68496910/libavahi-qt3-1_0.6.30-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb
   sudo dpkg -i libavahi-qt3-1_0.6.30-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35160268/liblua50_5.0.3-4_amd64.deb
   sudo dpkg -i liblua50_5.0.3-4_amd64.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35160270/liblualib50_5.0.3-4_amd64.deb
   sudo dpkg -i liblualib50_5.0.3-4_amd64.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68040034/kdelibs4c2a_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_amd64.deb
   sudo dpkg -i kdelibs4c2a_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_amd64.deb

   Otherwise if you are running a 32-bit system run the following commands

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get install kdelibs5-data
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68040450/kdelibs-data_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_all.deb
   sudo dpkg -i kdelibs-data_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_all.deb
   sudo apt-get install libqt3-mt
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68495846/libavahi-qt3-1_0.6.30-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i libavahi-qt3-1_0.6.30-0ubuntu2_i386.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35166252/liblua50_5.0.3-4_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i liblua50_5.0.3-4_i386.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35166254/liblualib50_5.0.3-4_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i liblualib50_5.0.3-4_i386.deb
   wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/68040451/kdelibs4c2a_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_i386.deb
   sudo dpkg -i kdelibs4c2a_3.5.10.dfsg.1-5ubuntu2_i386.deb

   If, for some reason, the wget links stop working, here are the launchpad pages to check for newer versions:
   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+p ... elibs-data
   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+p ... vahi-qt3-1
   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+package/liblua50
   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+p ... iblualib50
   https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+p ... delibs4c2a
   
   Now let’s download an rpm version of piklab, convert it to a .deb package and install it (this is for 64-bit. check the update below for 32-bit)

   Code: Select all

   wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/openSUSE_11.3/x86_64/piklab-0.15.10-6.5.x86_64.rpm
   sudo alien piklab-0.15.10-6.4.x86_64.rpm
   sudo dpkg -i piklab_0.15.10-7.4_amd64.deb

   For 32-bit

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get -f install
   get http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/openSUSE_11.3/i586/piklab-0.15.10-6.4.i586.rpm
   sudo alien piklab-0.15.10-6.4.i586.rpm
   sudo dpkg -i piklab_0.15.10-7.4_i386.deb

(Optional) After this process, if you want you can run the following command to clean up some unused packages that may have been installed;

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get autoremove

And that’s it. By now piklab should be available in your unity menu. You can also type “piklab” in your console to open it. Setup your programmer and projects in piklab and you’re ready to do some cool stuff with your PIC MCUs.