Part 1: Installing Thonny IDE

tags: TA Stuff RP2 Raspberry Pi Pico

VS Code IDE is suggested for developement and testing but Thonny is an alternative. You can find VS Code installation tutorial (here). This tutorial is based on this tutorial.

In this tutorial, we walk you through the basic installation of the development environment, if you choose to use Thonny as your development IDE, you should follow this tutorial.

We'll continuously update this walkthrough. Is there anything that needs to be clarified, or have you experienced some issues? Please add a comment. You do this by highlighting the text and then you can write a comment on the highlighted part. You need to log in/create an account on HackMD first.

0. Prerequisites

To finish this tutorial you need:

• Your computer (Windows, Linux, or Mac)
• Internet connection

Depending on your operating system follow one of the following sections.

Windows

Mac

Linux

Windows OS

Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Download and install Thonny (here).

You should follow the next tutorial (here) to update your device firmware before continue with the next step.

• Step 2: Open Thonny (first time you open Thonny you should see somthing similar to the following figure).

• Step 3: Click on View >> Files to open the file manager panel.

• Step 4: Open interpreter selection from Run >> Configure interpreter...

• Step 5: Choose your Raspberry Pi Pico similar to the numbered steps in the following figure.

• Step 6: You should see you board REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop). You can enter print('LNU Tutorial') and you see your board prints it to the serial port like the following image.

You are now ready to move to the next tutorial (here) to get familiar with terms and project structure.

Mac OS

Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Download and install Thonny (here).

You should follow the next tutorial (here) to update your device firmware before continuing with the next step.

• Step 2: Open Thonny (first time you open Thonny you should see somthing similar to the following figure).

• Step 3: Click on View >> Files to open the file manager panel.

• Step 4: Open interpreter selection from Run >> Configure interpreter...

• Step 5: Choose your Raspberry Pi Pico similar to the numbered steps in the following figure.

• Step 6: You should see you board REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop). You can enter print('LNU Tutorial') and you see your board prints it to the serial port like the following image.

You are now ready to move to the next tutorial (here) to get familiar with terms and project structure.

Linux OS (Ubuntu / Fedora)

Follow these steps:

• Step 1: Download the Thonny installation script (To get the latest version)

• Step 2: Install Thonny

  To install Thonny, upen up a Terminal and go to the folder where the Thonny file is located, which is usually Downloads/.

  ​​​​cd Downloads/
  

  This tutorial is based on Thonny 4.0.2, so if you install another version of Thonny, be sure to adjust the name of the .bash script file in the commands below.

  To run the .bash script, you must give the file execution permission:

  ​​​​sudo chmod +755 thonny-4.0.2.bash
  

  Finally, run the .bash script to install Thonny:

  ​​​​./thonny-4.0.2.bash
  

• Step 3: Open Thonny

  You should follow the next tutorial (here) to update your device firmware before continuing with the next step.

  Before opening Thonny, you must change the access permissions for the Pico. You can do this by connecting the Pico to the computer and open up a Terminal and execute this command: sudo chown <USERNAME> /dev/ttyACM0, where <USERNAME> should be your own user name. This must be done every time you connect the Pico to the computer.

  Give access permissions to the Pico with the following command:

  ​​​​sudo chown <USERNAME> /dev/ttyACM0
  

  Open Thonny:

• Step 4: Click on View >> Files to open the file manager panel.

• Step 5: Go to Run >>> Configure interpreter to select your Pico.

• Step 6: Select your Pico by following the numbered steps:

  The Pico port is usually /dev/ttyACM0 on Linux, but it can vary.

• Step 6: Now you should see the REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) in Thonny. Try to print something to make sure it works.

You are now ready to move to the next tutorial (here) to get familiar with terms and project structure.