Installing software
Eggbot is designed to work well on Mac, Windows, and Linux computers. To use it, you'll need to install certain software on your computer.
The Eggbot software actually consists of several different parts:
- Inkscape, the superb freeware vector graphics application
- The Eggbot extensions for Inkscape, which let you control the Eggbot from within Inkscape
- The Eggbot USB driver, on Windows systems.
Optionally but suggested, you may also want to download the set of example files from the [
(If you have not already, you may also want to download the set of example files from the EggBotCode Google Code site.)
The particulars of installation depend on the operating system:
Mac
1. Download and install the latest version of Inkscape (version 0.91 or newer) from the download page at Inkscape.org.
- Install Inkscape in the default location, the main "Applications" folder.
- Note that inkscape is an X11 application, and will require that X11 or XQuartz is installed on your Mac.
- For MacOS 10.6 and newer (Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, etc.), download and install the latest release of XQuartz.
- For MacOS 10.5 (Leopard), download and install the "Final Leopard Release," from the XQuartz site.
- For MacOS 10.4, use the X11 that came on your system installer disks.
- If you need additional assistance for installing Inkscape, you may be able to find good advice at the the Inkscape wiki and/or the Inkscape Forums. Please do not use Inkscape support resources for Eggbot-specific issues-- see note below about troubleshooting.
2. Download and install the Eggbot Extensions for Inkscape
- A new installer now available for Mac, available at github. Download and open the DMG (disk image) file. Run the EggBot Installer, and (optionally) copy the EggBot Example set onto your drive.
- The "Eggbot" submenu should appear in the Extensions menu of Inkscape after you restart Inkscape.
3. Troubleshooting
- Your software should now be set up to work correctly.
- If copy and paste are not working correctly in Inkscape, open the X11 preferences dialog, and disable the "Update Pasteboard when CLIPBOARD changes" option.
- If you encounter difficulty installing the Eggbot extensions for Inkscape (or with plotting, in the next stage), please request assistance through the Eggbot mailing list or forum, which you can find on our front page.
- If there is any chance that a problem you encounter is specific to Eggbot software or hardware, it is important that you do not directly seek assistance through Inkscape's support resources. You're much more likely to get your problem solved by asking people who know about Eggbot. And, we'd like the Inkscape team to be ready to help us when we do encounter Inkscape-specific issues.
Windows
1. Download and install the latest version of Inkscape (Version 0.91 or newer) from the download page at Inkscape.org.
- Install Inkscape in the default location, the main "Program Files" folder (or "Program Files (x86)" on newer systems).
- If you need additional assistance for installing Inkscape, you may be able to find good advice at the the Inkscape wiki and/or the Inkscape Forums. Please do not use Inkscape support resources for Eggbot-specific issues-- see note below about troubleshooting.
2. Download and run the EggBot installer for Windows
- Download the latest version of the Windows installer from the EggBot Releases page. Run the EggBot installer to install the Eggbot extensions, its USB driver, and (optionally) a set of example files.
- The "Eggbot" submenu should appear in the Extensions menu of Inkscape after you restart Inkscape.
3. Troubleshooting
- Your software should now be set up to work correctly.
- If, when trying to run USBDriverInstaller.exe, you get a "Application failed to initialize (0x0000135)" error, it means that your copy of Windows does not have the .Net libraries installed. This is straightforward to fix - go to [1] and run the installer from Microsoft, then run USBDriverInstaller again.
- If you encounter difficulty installing the Eggbot extensions for Inkscape (or with plotting, in the next stage), please request assistance through the Eggbot mailing list or forum, which you can find on our front page.
- If there is any chance that a problem you encounter is specific to Eggbot software or hardware, it is important that you do not directly seek assistance through Inkscape's support resources. You're much more likely to get your problem solved by asking people who know about Eggbot. And, we'd like the Inkscape team to be ready to help us when we do encounter Inkscape-specific issues.
Linux
The Eggbot extension for Inkscape has been developed and tested extensively under Ubuntu 10.04 - 12.04. We expect it to work equally well in most Ubuntu derivatives and other distributions where Inkscape is known to work. However, we do not have the capability to test every distribution.
Ubuntu install instructions:
- Use the Ubuntu Software Center to install Inkscape 0.47 or newer (0.48 or newer is recommended.)
- Launch Inkscape from the Applications menu, and then quit it.
- Download the latest Inkscape extensions .ZIP file from the downloads section of the github 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 folder inside the ZIP archive inside .config/inkscape/extensions/
- Add your user account to the "dialout" group. (See below for details.)
- Log out and log back in, for that group change to take effect.
- The "Eggbot" submenu should appear in the Extensions menu of Inkscape when you start Inkscape.
About adding your user account to the "dialout" group:
- In recent Linux releases (e.g., Ubuntu 12 and newer), it is also necessary to change your user permissions, to explicitly grant access to the USB port where the Eggbot is located. This can be done by adding your user group to the "dialout" user group on your system.
- Open up a terminal window
- For most distributions (including Fedora and Ubuntu), enter the command "sudo usermod -a -G dialout <myUserName>" <return>, replacing the <myUserName> part with the user that is running Inkscape (and without the quotation marks or angle brackets!).
- If you are unsure of your user name, enter the command "whoami" <return>, and the computer will happily remind you.
- If you are unsure whether you are already in the "dialup" group, enter the command "groups" <return>, and the computer will list the groups that you are in.
- After changing groups, you need to log out and log back in for the change to take effect.
sudo usermod -a -G dialout <myUserName>"
Debian Wheezy install instructions(command line):
- Download the latest Inkscape extension .ZIP file from the downloads section of EggBotCode Google Code site.
- Open up a terminal window, enter the command ,<return>, where you type your user name instead of UserName (And, no quotation marks.):
"sudo apt-get install inkscape" "sudo apt-get install unzip python-lxml" unzip the latest Inkscape extension .ZIP file into /home/'UserName'/.config/inkscape/extensions
Than you can use the Eggbot extension for Inkscape by type: "inkscape" <return>
Troubleshooting
- If your permissions are not correct (your user is not in the dialout group), you may get consistent "Unable to find an Eggbot" type error messages.
- If the Eggbot menu doesn't appear in Inkscape, verify that when you've extract the zip file, all the .py files are inside .config/inkscape/extensions/ folder (you might have extracted the entire eggbot folder, and .py files might be misplaced)
Additional known-working distributions and configurations
If you do use Eggbot under Linux, please feel free to add your (working) configuration to this list (started November 2013-- not extensive!)
- Ubuntu 12.04 with Inkscape 0.48.2 - 0.48.4
- Fedora Core 18 with Inkscape 0.48.4
- Debian 7 Wheezy with Inkscape 0.48.3.1
