Downloading and installing the new Arduino IDE for ESP8266

Moderator: igrr

User avatar
By AceOne
#44646 I too had this problem with v1.6.8. Led me into wanting to have independent portable versions of both 1.6.8 and 1.6.5 installed - and as it turns out running a portable install solves the "board unknown" problem with 1.6.8.

Took a while to find, but portable install is dead simple, just download the zip version and create folder named "portable" inside the folder you unpack to. Preferences.txt and board files will then automatically be stored there. You can copy your preferences.txt from %appdata%\Arduino15\ if you wish or start over. Re-install the ESP8266 in board manager, and everything works as expected.

Install on USB / Network-Drive / Dropbox etc and use on any computer you are near, and only ever worry about updating one install. Uninstall Arduino in control panel and manually remove leftover files in %appdata%\Arduino15\ to save some space.
User avatar
By AdaBill
#44658
AceOne wrote:I too had this problem with v1.6.8. Led me into wanting to have independent portable versions of both 1.6.8 and 1.6.5 installed - and as it turns out running a portable install solves the "board unknown" problem with 1.6.8.

Took a while to find, but portable install is dead simple, just download the zip version and create folder named "portable" inside the folder you unpack to. Preferences.txt and board files will then automatically be stored there. You can copy your preferences.txt from %appdata%\Arduino15\ if you wish or start over. Re-install the ESP8266 in board manager, and everything works as expected.

Install on USB / Network-Drive / Dropbox etc and use on any computer you are near, and only ever worry about updating one install. Uninstall Arduino in control panel and manually remove leftover files in %appdata%\Arduino15\ to save some space.


I'm not sure of this process. I made a new file called "portable" in mydocuments and downloaded the nightly build of arduino into it. When I ran the arduino exe from this download it had a preferences file pointed back to arduino15 folder. What is the sequence of events? Do I have to uninstall the current arduino version via control panel BEFORE I download the new version?, also when do I delet the arduino15 file.

I have had problems about how to keep the arduino.exe updated and also where the added boards will be installed via board manager. I n the past I renamed the Arduino15 folder, made a blank one then did the board manager thing. But this keeps all the new files in arduino15. I would like to be able to have one Arduino.exec vXX with maybe several versions of the board manager (for the ESP8266) if possible/

This process should be spelled out in the Nightly Builds section . Moderators Help.

Thanks for any help to resolve my confusion

Edited: 4/3/16

After a more thorough reading of you post and a look at the Instructable on Portable Installs, Here are the steps:
1) Either on a separate USB3 supported disk or on a newly created file on the existing C: drive
2) Make a new file folder: C:/../myDocuments/Arduino-04032016/
3) UnZip the Arduino into this folder
4) In this same folder create a NEW file called "portable". C:/../myDocuments/Arduino-04032016/portable
5) now run the Arduino.exe from this download.
6) In the Arduino IDE in files.. go down to and click on "Preferences"
7) At the bottom of the popup will be a line that shows where the preferences.txt file is located. This location should be your newly created location i.e.: C:/../myDocuments/Arduino-04032016/portable/preferences.txt if so, then you have done it correctly.
8) At the top of this popup shows the location for your sketches.C:/../myDocuments/Arduino/. This is where the current sketches are located. If you want to have the sketches go into this new location( possibly a seperate HDD) then you need to change it to that new location. Remember that you will need to create a NEW folder called Arduino NOT the same file used to store the Arduino.exe. i.e. C:/../myDocuments/Arduino/. Remember that the drive could be another HDD other than C: To make it truly portable, it should be also located on a separate drive. This should also work on an external USB Memory chip but I haven't tried that yet.
9) If you do go to an external drive, remember that if you use a USB2 type interface, it will be VERY SLOW compared to your internal HDD.
10) Also remember you will have to add the ESP8266 boards as mentioned in the AceOne post above. The be loaded into will now go into the portable folder so if you want to update them later on you can just delete the portable folder and go back up to step 4 from above.

I'm still going through this process so let me know if I have any of the above points wrong.

Edited 4-03-16 3:00 PM

I'm having errors doing a empty compile after loading the esp8266 boards.
Below is a portion of the error report.
***********************
In file included from C:\Users\Lynn&Bill\Documents\AArduinoEXEC\arduino-1.6.9-r-04012016\arduino-nightly\portable\packages\esp8266\hardware\esp8266\2.1.0\cores\esp8266\Esp.cpp:24:0:

c:\users\lynn&bill\documents\aarduinoexec\arduino-1.6.9-r-04012016\arduino-nightly\portable\packages\esp8266\tools\xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc\1.20.0-26-gb404fb9-2\xtensa-lx106-elf\include\c++\4.8.2\memory:62:31: fatal error: bits/stl_algobase.h: No such file or directory

#include <bits/stl_algobase.h>

********************************
I was able to find this .h file and copied it over from a previous download (NOT PORTABLE).
I then tried to compile, with another error.. Chased the error down through serveral more .h files, then gave up.
Seems something broke in the links in this "PORTABLE" download.

I tried with the straight 1.6.8 and also with the staging 1.6.9 r 4-01-16, same result.
Has anyone been able to get the Portable working?