Arduino upgrade from 1.8 to 2.0

Hi @mike650,

  Others may know more, so this is just a preliminary shot at an answer ... apologies it is in any way misleading ... and it might even depend on whether you are running Windows, Linux or Apple .. but I have both 1.8.x and 2.0.x versions on the same machine. I don't recall seeing any suggestions of one upgrading over the other. The normal install uses different base folder names.

Furthermore, I am not sure how compatible 1.8 version libraries will be with 2.0 ones. That sounds like a problem waiting to happen.

At least, still having 1.8.x  means you can use library manager, etc. to find a library you are using, then try, first built in 2.0 library manager search, then Google as a backup,  for that library name for an equivalent 2.0 version.

Best wishes,

Dave

@mike650 Hi Mike. I have both installed. There is absolutely nothing to fear, the libraries have zero dependency on the IDE. Once you understand that the IDE is nothing more than a shell around a command line you will realize how simple it is.

If you have 1.8 installed now, just download and install 2.0 and if you look in your preferences, I think they will be the same, and your libraries and boards will be identical for sure.

@davee libraries are NOT IDE-sensitive. The IDE is nothing more than a graphical shell around the command line program gcc. Have a read thru a compile to see how it all works, very educational. Also, read the section on the arduino.cc documentation that talks about libraries and how they are organized.

Hi Ron @zander,

   Thanks for the correction ... You are obviously correct in saying the IDE itself is a shell. I shouldn't have confused that point

You are also correct in so far as there is a single Arduino directory in the user home directory.

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NB Under Linux, the 1.8 install includes a copy of the libraries with library directory, and directory entries in it are dated 20 December 2021, that ends up as part of the Arduino 1.8 directory tree. I think that subconciously confused me. 

Apologies for confusing the issue.

Best wishes, Dave

@davee Also a single directory for the Arduino libraries/board libraries but it appears the preferences are separate. On my Mac it's Arduino15, on Windows I can't tell you at the moment as I just deleted my virtual windows and my new Windows PC does not have the Arduino set up yet but my hunch is it will also be Arduino15. It's been a while since I played with *nix and do not remember how it is organized, but I doubt it will be much different simply because the board definitions are common to all IDE's not just 1.0 and 2.0 plus the Arduino libraries (NOT the libraries you download) are probably no different since stdio is the same in both BUT since I have not looked at the *nix setup I reserve judgement.

Not sure what your Linux comments mean, but you can be sure I will check it out in the next few days.

Hi Ron @zander,

  Thanks for the update ...

FYI there is also an .arduino15 directory under Home user directory on my Linux box, although I am not clear if this is used by 2.0 only, or also 1.8.

I noticed I have 3 board options when searching "pico" on 2.0, but only 2 on 1.8, which seems a bit odd ifthey share the same data.

I don't know much about Windows, although I did find it hides some of the library stuff in the depths of the AppData tree.

Most of it probably doesn't matter to most people, but for me at least, it can make it confusing.

Best wishes, Dave

@davee With Windows, if you are an admin user vs a standard user you will see more folders and files. For those of us involved in support, one of the worst things about all the OS's is the freely available admin user creds. The fact they can see stuff isn't the issue, it's that they can also write and/or change stuff they should not. You probably recall the many battles I have had with people messing up their libraries because they walk into what should be protected folders and start modifying files and folders they should not. I just finished installing first 1.8 then 2.0. I don't see anything unusual vs what I expect from my MacOS experience.

I will try to get to *nix tomorrow or maybe later today but I don't expect to see any significant differences between 1.8 and 2.0 for the simple reason that the boards are not affected by the IDE shell, and that is the largest part of the Arduino tree followed by the 'Arduino' libraries. Those libraries are NOT the libraries you install via Library Manager or download as a zip file from GitHub.

As far as the number of RP2040 boards, that is a function of the preferences Additional Boards AND what boards you then installed from those sources. Since I have not looked at the *nix setup yet, I can't be 100% sure, but I know for sure the Win and Mac both have a single folder that contains the board data and that is Arduino15/packages. There you will find a folder for each major hardware platform.

The PICO situation is something new, we have the 'Raspberry Pi PICO' which is a development board and the Tools/Board menu returns 3 entries, one deprecated, one Pi PICO and an MBED PICO. You can choose to include the MBED but you lokely don't need it. If you also search on 2040 you will also get in addition to those just mentioned the Mbed OS Nano Boards because in that set is the Arduino NANO RP2040 Connect as well as other boards mostly for the IoT segment. I think for us hobbyists, we only need the Raspberry Pi PICO by Philhower selection.

For a Library refresher, see the attached pic, and the web page HERE

My experience was I kept having to re-install and uninstall my boards in the board manager every time I switched form one to the other. In general, it will depend on if the library has any dependency on what board version you have installed. IDE 2.0x will typically have version 2.07 and IDE 1.8 won't go past version 1.8. Most custom libraries will be in the directory C:\Users\jonny\Documents\Arduino\libraries (where jonny is your username) and shouldn't be impacted. There's really only one way to find out. 

@jonnyr Sorry, you are confused. I switch between IDEs every few hours and NEVER change ANYTHING else. The version # of the IDE has NOTHING to do with the version # of a board. In 99.99999% of the cases, you should be at the latest version # of a board. I know of one case where in order to compile a board had to be back levelled until the author fixed the code in question. That code was user code, not library or board code.

I am attaching a picture of both IDEs open at the same time using the same board version 2.0.7 and in each displaying a successful compile. I added esp8266 which is at ver 3.1.1 which breaks your description of how board version numbers relate to IDE version numbers.

Now if you want to put your boards back to the current version then show me what error you are having in the 2.0.4 IDE then I will help you resolve it. 

On the topic of Arduino IDEs, I've been using Programino for some time and have found it excellent. It has many more features than Arduino IDE 2.0 and I've had no problems using it with the installed Arduiono libraries. 

    Don

@donpk I just had a look at it and didn't see any difference other than you have to pay for it. NO thanks.