==== Introduction  ====


Here is a 'generic' step-by-step to getting an AVR development platform going on your computer using the free AVR toolchain (avr-gcc, avr-libc and avrdude) Pretty much every project uses this toolset so its a good way to get going 



Comments? Suggestions? Post to the [[http://www.ladyada.net/forums/|forum]]!


==== Windows Setup  ====
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[[http://sourceforge.net/projects/winavr/|Download the WinAVR package from sourceforge]] Make sure to download the latest and greatest version

if you grab some older versions (say June 07), avrdude may complain about not being able to find **libusb0.dll**, do a search on your computer for the file, then copy it to **C:/Windows/System32** and try again! This is a known bug, hopefully to be fixed soon...

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Install the software

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That's it! WinAVR is very simple to install, now lets test it out to make sure we have it installed. 

Open a command window

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 Now in the new terminal window type in **avrdude** you should get this response, which is basically a simple list of what **avrdude **can do 

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