Native Install

If you choose to do so, you can install SolarThing to a different location than /opt. If you do, just realize that this documentation will refer to /opt/solarthing/ instead of whatever custom location you use.

Warning

A native install is no longer the recommended way to run SolarThing. Please consider the Docker install before continuing: Docker Install.

Installing

Run these commands to install SolarThing. The script will install to /opt/solarthing and will create a new solarthing user. The script will also modify the root user’s .gitconfig.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing/master/other/linux/clone_install.sh | sudo bash
sudo usermod -a -G solarthing,dialout,tty,video $USER
git config --global --add safe.directory /opt/solarthing

Note

If you do not have curl installed, you can instead use wget -O - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wildmountainfarms/solarthing/master/other/linux/clone_install.sh | sudo bash. Make sure to also run the other commands shown above.

Note

You must have git installed on your system before running the install.

After installing and running the usermode command, you should log out and back in, for your user to have full access to the /opt/solarthing directory.

Checking if java is installed

Now SolarThing has been installed. That does not mean that java has been installed. Let’s check to see if java is installed now.

java -version

If you got an unknown command, you need to go to Install Java.

The solarthing command

Throughout the documentation, you may see the use of the solarthing command. Even though we ran the above installation command, it did not add the solarthing command to your PATH. Adding the solarthing command to your PATH is optional, but recommended.

If you decide not to add the solarthing command to your path, just know that these are equivalent:

solarthing version
# These are equivalent
/opt/solarthing/program/.bin/solarthing version

Adding solarthing command to your PATH

To add solarthing to your path temporarily, run

source /opt/solarthing/other/linux/path_update.sh

To add solarthing to your PATH for your user only, edit ~/.bash_profile like so:

nano ~/.bash_profile
# or if you do not have a .bash_profile
nano ~/.bashrc

Now go to the bottom of the file and add the above command to the end of the file. Save the file.

Testing the solarthing command

Now that you have the solarthing command in your PATH. Run

solarthing version

You should get output such as

pi@raspberrypi:/opt/solarthing$ solarthing version
SolarThing made by Lavender Shannon
Jar: solarthing-SNAPSHOT.jar
Jar last modified: 2021-12-20T08:28:27.040Z
Java version: 11.0.11

If you got similar output, continue on! The installation was successful!