Hello, I am able to load a couple of PD externals. I am using Pd 0.46.7 on Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon 64-bit. I am using the find externals command under the help menu. I see the directories in my ~pd-externals folder. But when I try and use objects like [counter] that are supposed to be in these externals I get a can"t create error?
I get this message when I start PD
sys_midiapi 1
input channels = 2, output channels = 2
priority 6 scheduling failed; running at normal priority
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/zexy.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/zexy.pd_linux and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/zexy/zexy.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/zexy/zexy.pd_linux and failed
/home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/zexy: can't load library
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/cyclone.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/cyclone.pd_linux and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/cyclone/cyclone.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/cyclone/cyclone.pd_linux and succeeded

Cyclone 0.3 beta 2; Released: June 19th, 2017
This is a sub library containing the objects:
[!-], [!-~], [!/], [!/~], [!=~], [%~], [+=~], [<=~], [<~], [==~], [>=~] and [>~]

tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/upp.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/upp.pd_linux and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/upp/upp.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/upp/upp.pd_linux and failed
/home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/upp: can't load library
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem.pd_linux and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem/Gem.l_ia64 and failed
tried /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem/Gem.pd_linux and succeeded
/home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem/Gem.pd_linux: libftgl.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
/home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/Gem: can't load library
deken-plugin.tcl (Pd externals search) in /home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/deken-plugin loaded.
Platform detected: Linux-x86_64-64bit
'deken-plugin.tcl' already loaded, ignoring: '/home/lulujoe13/pd-externals/deken-plugin/deken-plugin.tcl'
Opened Alsa Client 128 in:0 out:2
counter 1
... couldn't create

Can anyone offer suggestions and help? Thanks. JoeF.

Hello,

I did a writeup on this sort of thing awihle go... http://puredata.info/Members/derekxkwan/pdext-to-pd/ Essentially, you need to specify the folder that the externals are in. At least Cyclone contains binaries separate from the binary that has all the signal binops, so if you want something like [round], you have to type basically the relative path from something in your path to the object, so at least how it's laid own in the package downloader, [cyclone/round]. Zexy should be one binary though and you can load that with [declare] or load at startup via preferences (and once the binary is loaded, all the objects are in your "namespace" so if you want [swap~], you just type [swap~}, also I think Pd automatically searches subfolders for self-titled binaries)

Thanks for the help. It was useful. I do have to explicitly declare everything... Uggh. Well, at least I have the objects. JoeF.

@lulu_joe13 This is how it looks on my linux mint machine:

It is the Preferences -> Path... window.

I don't use [cyclone/counter] and i don't use [declare].
This is Pd 0.48

tx!