Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

Karl Ylvisaker — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:14:02 GMT

I am glad to hear that the issue is resolved, and that it is now working as expected.

Thanks again for the comments about the postinst scripts - they are forwarded to the developers.

Please do not hesitate to open another ticket if you should encounter any other issues or questions.

Good luck with your development!

Best regards,
Karl

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

V.Besse — Mon, 08 Aug 2022 14:04:42 GMT

Thank you aetheriumjim for forwarding the info here.

10.17.2 update is installing correctly. And I solved the "VSCode not finding nrfjprog", my fault, I hadn't installed the JLink package from Segger . Next step for me: opening a simple example in VSCode.

This thread can be closed for me.

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

aejoe — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 17:25:57 GMT

Hi Vincent et al, just to let you know 10.17.2 has recently been made available for download - I can't test it just yet as I've lost Ubuntu but it's meant to fix this very problem. Hope it works on your Debian. On the other hand, we did try the Windows x86 64 version of 10.17.0 in Windows 10 and got VSCode etc working and the blinky example to compile and upload very smooth. I might go back to Ubuntu to try it later when work time permits.

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

V.Besse — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 17:51:23 GMT

At least, in my case it was just for a little personal project and I wanted to give it a try since I have a nRF52840 board that sleeps. At work I'm developing on STM32, so if things get impossible here, I know what to do. One thing is sure I don't want to spend time on the tools, so either things are corrected soon enough (before I get too far with a STM32) or this first experience will probably be the last.

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

johnacogan67 — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 14:51:23 GMT

I'm in exactly the same position as you. Just crap at every turn. Just so fustrating to be left have to use a word like that. Where do I go from here?

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

aejoe — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 13:42:58 GMT

I just want to voice my opinion about this whole dev environment experience as being absolutely atrocious - one of the worst of its kind. It has made me look bad at work where I suggested we select the nRF chipset for our next generation product, which looked appealing at first but it's just been fighting problem after problem despite following the instructions to the letter to get a basic blinking LED program to just start with. From simple errors in the documentation such as support of the latest LTS Ubuntu (22 as of now, and as our team generally don't run Windows or Mac), then installing all the bits and pieces manually, and after spending ages finding out that 22 is in fact not supported by one of the required components, then backtracking, reinstalling Ubuntu 20, finding broken deb packages and components, seeing myself and other users experience initialization problems in VS Code... honestly, Nordic has really dropped us all in it this time - just atrocious. I've programmed in all sorts of MCUs and ARM boards so I'm not new to dev environments. Our manager is now pressing to abandon the choice of nRF and I might just have to comply because I've got nothing to show for it but a migraine.

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

V.Besse — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 08:39:59 GMT

I've been able to install the package after manually editing the postinst script (deleted all after the second 'ln -sf' command). I now have issues with VSCode not finding nrfjprog and complaining about a shell initialization failure.

II've seen in another thread that a 10.17.2 update should be available in a few days. I'll wait.

Regards.

Vincent

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

Karl Ylvisaker — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 02:19:01 GMT

Hello again, Vincent

I am very sorry to hear that this is the state of the postinst script - I personally have very little debian experience myself, but this does indeed sound pretty grave based on your description.
I will update my internal ticket to the developers to contain your comment.
We always wholeheartedly welcome feedback like this, so that we can improve - thank you for the valuable insight!

I understand how this would constitute a bad start to your Nordic evaluation, but I hope and trust that it all will be better from here once you get into working with the nRF Connect SDK! :)

Please do not hesitate to open another ticket if you should encounter any other issues or questions in the future!

Best regards,
Karl

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

V.Besse — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 10:08:07 GMT

Thank you for the answer and the link. I'm a bit angry, nobody has verified the package before it's publication! I'm really sorry to say that but the postinst script is crap. There's a unattended fi at line 22, there are rpm commands which is nonsense in a debian package, lines 12 to 21 are repeated at 24 to 33 (??!) and last there's no 'segger' folder under /opt/nrf-command-line-tools/share/ so the dpkg --install can only fail.

Coming from ST world, I wanted to give Nordic a try since I have a nRF52840 dev board. Bad start.

Since I'm a developer I know there can be bugs here or there that can pass verification and tests, but in this case just trying to install the package would have avoid this issue.

Regards

Vincent

RE: Trouble installing nrf commandline tools on Debian

Karl Ylvisaker — Wed, 03 Aug 2022 00:40:42 GMT

Hello Vincent,

Another forum-user recently also reported this, but we are still looking into the root cause.
The other forum-user were seemingly able to work around it by editing their postint script, like described in their ticket.
Hopefully this workaround will work for you as well, while we patch the .deb.

Best regards,
Karl