Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

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Y@@J
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Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by Y@@J »

Hello,

I haven't played with my BluePill's for the last 6 months. Today I decided to flash some with Roger's booloader, and verify them all (some are fake). STLink, no problems.
Then, I opened Arduino IDE (have to renew my VisualMicro licence...), and all STM32 boards were gone !
Verified the Preferences : package_stm_index.json was there, and the link was valid.
Went to the boards manager, STM32 cores were marked "deprecated" and "not installed".
I reinstalled the "deprecated" boards (1.9.0), and got very different STM32 boards menus (many entries were gone).

I verified against another PC, offline ; all submenus with "(in sketchbook)" and "STM32duino.com" are gone on my main PC.

I suspect some drastic changes in package_stm_index.json, and in the way boards are now managed.

I compiled and flashed "blink" : no problem ; compiles, uploads and runs flawlessly (USB / Mapple bootloader DFU 2.0)

Is there some informations about the new boards management ? What happened ? Is it just some cleaning ? (to be honest, it was a bit of a mess !)
hobbya
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by hobbya »

package_index_stm.json of the board manager is meant for STM official core.
1.9.0 is a version of the official STM core. Latest one is verion 2.0.0. So what you have re-installed is absolutely not Roger's core but the STM core.

Roger's core is installed by manually placing the files within Arduino like the following:
>documents>arduino>hardware>arduino_stm32
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Juraj
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by Juraj »

mrburnette
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by mrburnette »

Juraj wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 4:49 am http://dan.drown.org/stm32duino/package ... index.json
is for Roger's core
"url" : "http://dan.drown.org/stm32duino/STM32F1-2020.1.17.zip",
"category" : "STM32",
"archiveFileName" : "STM32F1-2020.1.17.zip"
NO IT IS NOT ROGER'S CORE



https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/ ... STM32/wiki
Y@@J
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by Y@@J »

Oops !

I understand what happened : I accidentaly zip'd the Roger's Core folder (Documents/Arduino/Hardware/Arduino_STM32) and everything below (STM32F1, STM32F4) while doing some clean up and archiving. And later thought some auto update occured while updating libraries.

Everything is back !

Thank you ! You saved me a lot of time.
mrburnette
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by mrburnette »

Y@@J wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 1:25 pm Oops !

I understand what happened : I accidentaly zip'd the Roger's Core folder (Documents/Arduino/Hardware/Arduino_STM32) and everything below (STM32F1, STM32F4) while doing some clean up and archiving. And later thought some auto update occured while updating libraries.

Everything is back !

Thank you ! You saved me a lot of time.

I simply keep a folder titled "...\Arduino\NofCurrent" and move entire sub-folders between that folder and "\Arduino\hardware" to make it easy to test and achieve. Cores are not terribly disk-hungry, so Zipping and such really has a minimal impact on a 1T SSD.
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fpiSTM
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by fpiSTM »

mrburnette wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 1:14 pm
Juraj wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 4:49 am http://dan.drown.org/stm32duino/package ... index.json
is for Roger's core
"url" : "http://dan.drown.org/stm32duino/STM32F1-2020.1.17.zip",
"category" : "STM32",
"archiveFileName" : "STM32F1-2020.1.17.zip"
NO IT IS NOT ROGER'S CORE



https://github.com/rogerclarkmelbourne/ ... STM32/wiki
Well I agree and not ;)
I would say it is an unofficial Arduino packaging of Roger's core done automatically as a daily basis.
https://github.com/ddrown/Arduino_STM32_release_tools

IMHO, it brings confusion to user because it uses "stm32duino" name for maintainer and packager.
It should explicitly told it is an unofficial package of Roger's core.
packager should be ddrown and for maintainer, hard to tell. Maybe community.

I guess, json url should also remove stm32duino.
Y@@J
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by Y@@J »

mrburnette wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 1:44 pm
I simply keep a folder titled "...\Arduino\NofCurrent" and move entire sub-folders between that folder and "\Arduino\hardware" to make it easy to test and achieve. Cores are not terribly disk-hungry, so Zipping and such really has a minimal impact on a 1T SSD.
It is not about disk space, it is about backups : thousands of tiny files take a lot of time because of disk access latency. Reason why from time to time I zip all files I don't access anymore. It's just about random vs sequencial access. Makes a huge difference when copying to backup disks.
mrburnette
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by mrburnette »

Y@@J wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 3:54 pm It is not about disk space, it is about backups : thousands of tiny files take a lot of time because of disk access latency. Reason why from time to time I zip all files I don't access anymore. It's just about random vs sequencial access. Makes a huge difference when copying to backup disks.
It has been years since I have even thought about access time; I only purchase refurb business hardware and I guess maybe the last "spinner" disk I got was 4 years ago. Such concerns do not exist with SSD. Refurbished machines are up in price due to COVID school/work from home, but keep a watch as the prices will likely drop as soon as COVID is conquered. Refurbished can be a really fantastic hardware value. And if you buy from a charity, often the MS Win10 Pro license is free or negligible in price. Examples: https://interconnection.org/retailstore/ and students get a big discount ... and check often as sales happen 4 or 5 times a year and can represent savings of 30% which is significant with free shipping + 1 year replacement warranty.

But, if you have a spinner and are using Win10, consider setting up your working directories using the free MS W10 backup utility. Changes will be tracked, backup cached, and will back-up when you plug in your USB backup drive... everything is in the background so you can still utilize the PC.

I realize that you have legitimate concern for older, under-cashed hardware. So, if you have a procedure that works for you, just remember that the backup is the goal - anyway you create it.
ag123
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Re: Roger's Core, Arduino IDE 1.8.15 and package_stm_index.json

Post by ag123 »

as i'm doing linux life is a little 'easier', i simply symlink that folder out to a external directory. i think that is possible in windows as well, just that it is less common to do that in windows. the main purpose is just so that i won't need 2 sets of pretty large folders, e.g. the stm32duino official core is upwards of 400Megs and the compiler xpack-arm is another 400 Megs. and as i use makefiles rather than 'arduino ide', i simply update my makefile to use those in the common locations.

i think windows and linux may be able to use zip files as 'folders', but chances is this is 'non standard' and some additional s/w is needed to use those

these days if one uses ssd, there is little difference between a zip file vs direct access. i'd guess that's why the author of linux kernel linus himself uses ssd. linux kernel sources is much larger and takes longer to compile, it'd be a pain without an ssd
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