Revision as of 14:46, 4 October 2010

1. summary How to install Eggbot software on various operating systems

How to install Egg-bot software

Notes and experiences on installing the egg-bot software on different operating systems.

Mac

Note that inkscape is an X11 application, so you must first have X11 installed on your Mac. The most recent recommended version of X11 for Macs is XQuartz

Installer Package (September 2010)

We will be packaging the eggbot software in a Mac installer, for Inkscape 0.48, and will available from this site, coming soon. (Current target: late September 2010.) This driver has been tested on OS 10.6 and is expected to work on OS 10.4+. For earlier OS versions, manual installation is required.

• First, download and install Inkscape 0.48 from http://www.inkscape.org/.
• Next, download the Eggbot installer package from the downloads page of this site and run it.
• The eggbot submenu should appear in the Extensions menu of Inkscape after you restart Inkscape.

Manual install on Mac

Manual installation of the driver software is also possible; the specifics are version dependent.

Mac OS 10.6

There is a known bug in Inkscape 0.47 and 0.48, in that extensions (even the built-in ones) do not work under snow leopard without patches. Manual installation is not recommended on Snow Leopard for this reason.

Mac OS 10.5

(and 10.6 once patched as above.):

• Download and install Inkscape 0.48. (Versions before 0.47 are not supported.)
• Download the latest snapshot of the Inkscape extension .ZIP file from the downloads page of this site and decompress it.

Copy the entire contents of that archive into one of the following two locations:

• /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/extensions/
• ~/.config/inkscape/extensions/

The former has the advantage that it is available for all users, and the disadvantages that it is installed within the application bundle itself and may require administrator authentication.

Mac OS 10.4 and older

Follow the directions for Mac OS 10.5 above. You may also need to install Python 2.5, if your system does not already have it.

Windows

Windows XP and newer:

We will be packaging the eggbot software in a Windows installer (for Inkscape 0.48), and will available from this site, coming soon. (Current target: late September 2010.) We have not tested earlier OS versions, manual installation is likely to be required.

• First, download and install Inkscape 0.48 from http://www.inkscape.org/.
• Next, download the Eggbot installer package from the downloads page of this site and run it.
• The eggbot submenu should appear in the Extensions menu of Inkscape after you restart Inkscape.

Installing the driver manually

First, download Inkscape 0.48 from the inkscape site, http://inkscape.org/ Then, download the latest version of the Inkscape extension ZIP archive from this site. Uncompress it, revealing a number of items including things like eggbot.inx and eggbot.py, and a folder called "serial."

Open up the*...Inkscape\share\extensions\* folder and copy over those items into that folder. After doing this, quit and restart Inkscape to make the Eggbot driver show up in the Extensions menu.

In order for windows to recognize the Eggbot USB device, you will probably also need The Driver info (INF) file. An installer for this is available separately.

Linux

We have tested the extension to work under Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). It should work in other distributions where Inkscape is known to work as well.

Ubuntu install instructions:

• Use the Ubuntu Software Center to install Inkscape 0.47 or newer (0.48 recommended.)
• Launch Inkscape from the Applications menu, and then (optionally) quit it.
• Download the latest Inkscape extension .ZIP file from the downloads section of this site.
• From the "Places" menu, open your Home Folder.
• From the "View" menu select "Show hidden files" -- the .config folder should be visible.
• Place the contents of the ZIP archive inside .config/inkscape/extensions/
• Quit and restart Inkscape.