EENG 383

Mplab and XC8 Install on Linux

Preface

One of the reasons that I chose to use the MPLAB X IDE is that it is available as a free download allowing student to use it on their own computers. This supports an important pillar of my teaching philosophy; to enable students to work independently to explore and solve interesting problems. Unfortunately, many engineering programs are PC only, leaving Linux users with awkward solutions to work off campus. Fortunately with a little work, Linux users can install and use the MPLAB X IDE + XC8. What follows are some guidelines and a short walkthrough to help you through the process.

As a PC user I have not tested these guides! I would, however, be more than happy to improve the quality. Just send me an email at coulston@mines.edu with concrete suggestions on how to improve them. Support your fellow and future Linux users. That said, thanks to Connor for providing these.

These installation guides for MPLAB and XC8 were used to install the software on a Debian based system. The only issue is that the installer doesn't create a launcher, so you will have to make one yourself. Follow the linked guide below for that. One tricky part is finding the actual application in their file folders - it is /microchip/mplabx/v5.25/mplab_platform/bin/mplab_ide These links are for the guides: A short walkthrough by Nolan Pratt (nolanpratt@mines.edu) is written below:

Preliminaries

Make sure you have the following: The following instructions were used to install MPLAB X on a Fedora Linux system using the KDE Plasma Desktop environment (using MPLAB v6.25). Download the Linux version of MPLAB X IDE from the following link: https://www.microchip.com/en-us/tools-resources/develop/mplab-x-ide#tabs

Then you need to extract the archive file, which can be done with the following command: 
$ tar -xvf MPLABX-v*-linux-installer.tar
This uses a wildcard to ignore the version of MPLAB you are using.

Installing MPLAB X IDE

You will then need to run the installer as root (using sudo as necessary): 
# ./MPLABX-v*-linux-installer.sh
After you run this command, you should see the installation wizard pop up graphically. Accept the license agreement and choose the installation directory. The default installation directory is in "/opt", which is usually used for optional software that is not managed by the system (so this is where we'd want to install MPLAB in most cases).

To get a functional installation for the purposes of EENG 383, you only need the following applications: You can safely uncheck all other options. You might get a warning about udev rules being changed during installation—this is normal.

Installing XC8 Compiler

When you click finish for the MPLAB installation, make sure the checkbox to install the XC8 compiler is still checked. You should see another installation wizard pop up. Accept the license for this one too.

You only need the "Free" version of XC8, and you don't need to check the box for the dongle license. The default directory for this installation should be good as well. I would check the box for the PATH environment variable, as this allows you to invoke the compiler from the command line without using the full path. Skip the section about licensing and then hit finish.

Using MPLAB X IDE

I was able to run MPLAB through my default application launcher, as it correctly added the desktop file to "/usr/share/applications".

You will also need a way to communicate with the microcontroller over serial. I installed PuTTY from the fedora package repository. Other users have had success using screen.

On my system, the microcontroller binds to "/dev/ttyUSB0" by default, and if this is the case for you, make sure to use that instead of "COM#" for any labs.