#VSCode – Installing Visual Studio Code in a #RaspberryPi, a couple of lessons learned – @code

Hi!

Now that I have my amazing Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB RAM, it’s time to see how serious the device is. So, I decided to install and use some developers’ tools in the RPi. My dev list will be something like this

• Python
• Some ML and AI Python packages
• GIT
• Arduino
• Visual Studio Code

It’s been a while since I installed VSCode in the device. The last time I did this, I needed to download the code from GitHub and compile the tool in the Raspberry Pi. As far as I remember this was a +25 min process.

Lucky for us the process can now be much simpler, thanks to Headmelted (see references). Now, we only need a single command to install VSCode:

. <( wget -O -
https://code.headmelted.com/installers/apt.sh )

Install process started! Or Maybe not because I found this amazing GPG error

pi@rpidev3:~ $ curl -L https://code.headmelted.com/installers/apt.sh | sudo bash
   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
 100  2349    0  2349    0     0  19739      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 19906
 Detecting architecture…
 Ensuring curl is installed
 Reading package lists… Done
 Building dependency tree       
 Reading state information… Done
 curl is already the newest version (7.64.0-4).
 The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
   python3-pyperclip python3-thonny rpi.gpio-common
 Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
 Architecture detected as armv7l…
 Retrieving GPG key headmelted…
   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
   0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--     0
 gpg: no valid OpenPGP data found.
 Removing any previous entry to headmelted repository
 Installing [headmelted] repository…
 Updating APT cache…
 Hit:1 http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian buster InRelease
 Hit:2 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian buster InRelease
 Get:3 https://packagecloud.io/headmelted/codebuilds/debian stretch InRelease [23.4 kB]
 Err:3 https://packagecloud.io/headmelted/codebuilds/debian stretch InRelease
   The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 0CC3FD642696BFC8
 Reading package lists…
 W: GPG error: https://packagecloud.io/headmelted/codebuilds/debian stretch InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 0CC3FD642696BFC8
 E: The repository 'https://packagecloud.io/headmelted/codebuilds/debian stretch InRelease' is not signed.
 Done!
 Repository install complete.
 Installing Visual Studio Code from [stretch]…
 Reading package lists… Done
 E: The value 'stretch' is invalid for APT::Default-Release as such a release is not available in the sources
 Visual Studio Code install failed.

There a public GPG key used to verify the package and the SH script somehow does not download it (I think the ARM RPI version is still not defined). So, before the previous command, I need to run these commands

wget https://packagecloud.io/headmelted/codebuilds/gpgkey
sudo apt-key add gpgkey

Then run this command

curl -L https://code.headmelted.com/installers/apt.sh | sudo bash

Now we have Visual Studio Code installed!

But, yes another but, you may note that the tool open and display a black window. Again, I need to go deeper on the details, but the latest version does not work well. There is some context information on GitHub (see references), and the proposed solution is to rollback to a previous version

sudo apt-get install code-oss=1.29.0-1539702286

And we also need to disable the automatic updates on this tool

sudo apt-mark hold code-oss

And now, yes, we got a fully functional Visual Studio Code in our Raspberry Pi!

Happy Coding!

Greetings @ Toronto

El Bruno

References

• Headmelted, Community Builds for Visual Studio Code https://code.headmelted.com/
• Jay Rogers, Headmelted https://github.com/headmelted
• GitHub, can’t get code-oss to launch raspberry pi 3b https://github.com/headmelted/codebuilds/issues/67

My posts on Raspberry Pi

Dev posts for Raspberry Pi

• How to grant permissions to a folder after git clone, to perform dotnet restore on a Raspberry Pi
• How to install .Net Core 3.1 in a Raspberry Pi 4
• Installing Visual Studio Code in a Raspberry Pi 4, run as root, fix black screen
• How to install .Net Core in a Raspberry Pi 4 and test with Hello World
• Build and Run C# NetCore projects in a Raspberry Pi 4 with Visual Studio Code
• Let’s do some Git dev in Raspberry Pi 4 (GitHub and Azure DevOps!)
• Install OpenCV
• Install Python Virtual Environments in Raspberry Pi

Tools and Apps for Raspberry Pi

• Where is my Task Manager in RaspberryPi? Let’s try htop
• Multi-monitor in Raspberry Pi 4 rocks !
• Double Commander on RaspberryPi4, because files are important
• How to install Docker in a Raspberry Pi 4
• Installing Visual Studio Code in a Raspberry Pi
• Installing Visual Studio Code in a Raspberry Pi, run as root, fix black screen (Updated)
• 6 commands to install OpenCV for Python in a Raspberry Pi 4

Setup the device

• 1st Setup without monitor: auto connect to WiFi, enable SSH, update and more
• Setup without monitor: enable VNC
• How to enable auto start with HDMI safe mode
• Running a Python script in a Python Virtual Environment on reboot / startup

Hardware

• Ice Tower, the best cooler for your device! From 70C to <40C in a 60 minutes process running at 100% in all 4 cores
• Intel Neural Stick 2, Performance differences in Face Recognition using OpenVino