Install Arduino IDE on Raspberry Pi

The Arduino IDE is a vital tool for flashing Arduino devices. You can install Arduino IDE on Raspberry Pi OS using these easy steps.

You could use apt:

sudo apt install arduino

but this results in the installation of Arduino IDE version 1.6. This is an extremely outdated version which makes it difficult to use or impossible to flash certain devices.

So I recommend manually installing the Arduino IDE using the software available from the official Arduino site.

I’m assuming you have a working installation of a recent Raspberry Pi OS image.

Download Arduino IDE Software

Firstly visit the Official Arduino website:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/software

Then click on the download labelled “Linux ARM 32 bits”. This should download a file that is named something like this “arduino-####-linuxarm.tar.xz” where #### is the version number.

Version Number

In the commands that follow you will need to replace #### with the version number. At the time of writing the version number is “1.8.13”.

Install Arduino IDE

Open a terminal window and ensure you are in the home directory:

cd ~

Navigate to the Downloads folder:

cd Downloads

List the files in the Downloads folder using:

ls

You should see the Arduino IDE archive:

arduino-####-linuxarm.tar.xz

Note the version number.

Extract the contents of the downloaded file:

tar -xf arduino-####-linuxarm.tar.xz

This should create a folder named “arduino-####” full of files.

Move the folder to /opt using:

sudo mv arduino-#### /opt

Finally complete the installation by running:

sudo /opt/arduino-####/install.sh

Running Arduino IDE

The installation process adds an entry into the Raspberry Pi OS menu. You can find the Arduino IDE entry under the “Programming” heading.

Clicking “Arduino IDE” will run the IDE.

Video How-To

The Arduino IDE installation process is covered in this video:

Adding Support for ESP8266 Boards (optional)

One reason for manually installing the Arduino IDE is that version 1.6 doesn’t allow adding support for additional devices. With the latest version we can add support for the ESP8266 family of boards.

In order to flash 8266 devices you can add a URL to the boards manager.

Select “Preferences” under the “File” menu:

In the “Additional Boards Manager URLs” paste in the following URL:

https://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

Click “OK” to complete the change.

Now under the “Tools” menu select “Board” followed by “Boards Manager”.

In the search box type “8266” and press “Enter”. The search result should present you with “esp8266” by the “ESP8266 Community”.

Click “Install”

Under Tools > Board you should now have an entry for “ESP8266 Boards” containing a collection of ESP8266 based boards to choose from.