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Per usare l’IDE Arduino 1.0 su Debian Squeeze 6.x non è possibile installarlo direttamente con apt-get perché la versione in Stable è la 0018+dfsg-6 e la libreria librxtx è la pre2-2; tuttavia usarlo è piuttosto semplice seguendo questi accorgimenti¹:

Arduino 1.0 and Arduino UNO on Debian squeeze (6.0.3)

These steps describe how to get started with an arduino uno and debian squeeze. First we will install all dependencies. Next we download and extract the latest arduino 1.0 binary for linux. And finally we adjust some settings. All really easy.

NOTE 1: current arduino package in stable (squeeze) is version 0018+dfsg-6.
NOTE 2: arduino 1.0 has just been accepted in unstable (sid).

1. Dependencies

REMEMBER: the arduino UNO requires librxtx-java 2.2pre2-3 or higher. The current stable package is pre2-2. The easiest way around this is to temporarily add testing to your sources. Testing currently uses pre2-10.

So edit your /etc/apt/sources.list (or use your favourite gui package manager) and add:
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free

Now install librxtx-java:
sudo apt-get install librxtx-java

Remove the line again to use stable packages and do:
sudo apt-get install gcc-avr avrdude gcc avr-libc libantlr-java libecj-java libjna-java liboro-java openjdk-6-jdk

2. Download the binary for linux 32 bit (or 64 bit, if you must)

links are here: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software

3. Extract the folder to a convenient location

For example ~/convenient/location/arduino-1.0

4. Now you can connect your arduino UNO and start the IDE

Double click the ‘arduino‘ script or start it from the shell with:

sh arduino

You will notice that you can’t select a Serial Port in the tools menu. This is probably because you need to add your user to a few groups to get it working.

NOTE 1: you also have to connect your Arduino UNO to be able to select a serial port.
NOTE 2: for a quick test you can run arduino as root with: sudo sh arduino. You should be able to select a Serial Port now.

5. Of course you don’t want to be running the arduino ide as root, so add your user to the groups tty and dialout like so:

sudo usermod -a -G tty yourUserName sudo usermod -a -G dialout yourUserName

Log off and log on again for the changes to take effect!

NOTE: Some guides tell you to add your user to the uucp and/or don’t add your user to the dialout group. If things don’t work try those. Or check the group of your serial port. For example /dev/ttyACM0 (should be dialout). Then add your user to this group.