Charging up with Energia

We (mostly Jorel) did some cool things with Arduino's evil twin known as Energia. This program is much more powerful than I thought it would be, and it's getting better still. One of the main drawbacks I see in Energia is the fact that it is not really supported on linux (I tried many times in vain to install it). Well, look no further, there is in fact a self-contained beta version for Ubuntu. It does a lot of things perfectly, except one, which requires a major caveat. Wrestling a hippopotamus is easier than getting some of the serial programs to work. Other than that, Energia offers a whole new world to windows users, and a great deal of functionality and ease of use for linux users, sans serial. So check out the beta at the link, I hope there will be more to come (For Linux users only, Windows has a working build).

Energia-Linux Beta Build (link is in pbrier's 2nd comment)
Installation requires a bit of finangling, I might write up a little tutorial on how to get this working, if anyone reads this and has trouble, feel free to drop  me a line.

  So, what are we doing with this? One word: Bluetooth. We are toying with working Bluetooth into the LED tile and other such things, so you can control and program them from a distance, as well as enable the LED tile send feedback, ask you how your day was, maybe get the kettle going for when you get back from work (just kidding about the last two, but the last one would be sweet, home automation fame here we come!). Expect tremendous and daring feats for our third presentation.

 Finally, on a project related-note, Energia is quickly growing in our hearts, and looks as though it may devour Code Composer Studio as defacto introductory programming platform for the msp430, at least for us. If Energia can get its act together on Linux then the battle is already won in my book (getting anything that combines the programmer and the compiler in one fell swoop is already ahead of the game compared to CCS. Throw in the fact that Energia is FOSS, and that turkey is basically cooked).This gives me a whole new perspective on programming the msp430, and makes the msp430 a more formidable tool in the eyes of the Arduinauts. Things like porting Arduino code effectively and efficiently are now possible with the progress made by Energia. Expect more Energia-based code from us soon.