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GNU ARM

GNU ARM

May 07, 2014

ARM maintains a complete toolchain for building and debugging firmware for ARM-based micro-controllers. This is the primary toolchain used by the OpenWSN team to program the following motes:

This page details the installation steps:

Installing ARM toolchain

You can find the ARM toolchain at https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded. Version 4.7 is the latest currently used: https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/4.7/4.7-2013-q3-update

The installation consists in the following steps:

  1. Download the toolchain

  2. Inflate (unzip) the toolchain

  3. Modify the PATH environment variable so Eclipse can invoke the compiler.

 

In Ubuntu, Add the repository for gcc-arm-embedded: $ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:terry.guo/gcc-arm-embedded $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi Then check your version: $ arm-none-eabi-gcc --version arm-none-eabi-gcc (4.8.2-14ubuntu1+6) 4.8.2 Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Download toolchain 4.7: https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/4.7/4.7-2013-q3-update/+download/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_7-2013q3-20130916-linux.tar.bz2 Install dependencies in Ubuntu/Debian: (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS recommended to avoid the following Eclipse bug: http://stackoverflow.com/a/19543780) sudo apt-get install python-serial python-argparse openocd \ flex bison libncurses5-dev autoconf texinfo build-essential \ libftdi-dev libtool zlib1g-dev genromfs ia32-libs-multiarch git-core wget Note: on older systems, "ia32-libs-multiarch" may be called just "ia32-libs." Extract gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_7.tar.bz2 to a desired folder e.g., ~/openwsn/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_7. Modify the PATH environment variable: exportline="export PATH=$HOME/openwsn/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_7/bin:\$PATH" if grep -Fxq "$exportline" ~/.profile; then echo nothing to do ; else echo $exportline >> ~/.profile; fi . ~/.profile Add your username to the dialout group to make serial port access easier: sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER Verify that you can invoke the compiler: ~$ arm-none-eabi-gcc --version arm-none-eabi-gcc (GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors) 4.7.3 20130312 (release) [ARM/embedded-4_7-branch revision 196615] Copyright (C) 2012 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Download the Windows installer. Double-click on the installer and follow the default installation procedure. Modified the PATH environment to contain the bin/ directory of the toolchain installation directory. For example: C:\Program Files\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\4.8 2013q4\bin Verify that you can invoke the compiler: C:\Users\Thomas>arm-none-eabi-gcc --version arm-none-eabi-gcc (GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors) 4.8.3 20131129 (release) [ARM/embedded-4_8-branch revision 205641] Copyright (C) 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Installing Eclipse

  • Download Eclipse CDT for C/C++ developers from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-cc-developers/keplersr1

    • Note: Do not install Eclipse using apt.  It is outdated and the plugins require a more recent version of Eclipse

  • unzip eclipse in your favorite folder e.g., /opt/eclipse

  • Execute eclipse and go to Help->Install New Software.

  • Add gnu-arm eclipse plug-in url and install the plug-in. Use the following url.

    http://gnuarmeclipse.sourceforge.net/updates

  • Restart eclipse when installation finishes

Testing

  • Once the gnu-arm plug-in is installed you can test that everything works by creating a test project.

  • To do so, click File > New > C Project and select ARM Cross Target Application

  • Make sure to select the right cross compiler. In my case I choose ARM Linux GCC (GNUARM). If you are using Code Sourcery or Yagarto or another tool chains, select the appropriate.

  • Name your project (e.g. "test") and click Finish.

  • Right click on the project and select properties:

  • Select the micro-controller architecture, for example Cortex M4

  • Move to the "assembler" option and set up the path to your gcc-arm-none/ directory. Select arm-none-eabi-gcc

    If you have update your computer PATH environment variable, you can just enter arm-none-eabi-gcc, without the full path.

  • Repeat the same steps for the compiler, which in our case is also arm-none-eabi-gcc.

  • Repeat the same steps for the linker, which in our case is also arm-none-eabi-gcc.

  • Configure the "Flash image creator" as follows:

  • Configure the "Create Listing" as follows:

  • Configure the "Print Size" as follows:

  • At this point, configure any extra options you might want, such as optimizations and debug levels.

  • Click OK to apply all changes.

  • Create a file to test the compiler. You can toggle an LED according to your hardware specification or simply code a while loop and test the compiler.

    int main(void){ int i = 0; while (i < 10) { i++; } return i; }

  • Right-click on the project and select Build Project. Based on your configuration, Eclipse invokes the ARM GCC compiler, linker, flash image creator, and size printer tools. 

    15:49:03 **** Incremental Build of configuration Debug for project openwsn **** make all Building file: ../src/main.c Invoking: ARM Linux GCC C Compiler arm-none-eabi-gcc -O0 -Wall -Wa,-adhlns="src/main.o.lst" -c -fmessage-length=0 -MMD -MP -MF"src/main.d" -MT"src/main.d" -mcpu=cortex-m4 -mthumb -g3 -gdwarf-2 -o "src/main.o" "../src/main.c" Finished building: ../src/main.c Building target: openwsn.elf Invoking: ARM Linux GCC C Linker arm-none-eabi-gcc -nostartfiles -Wl,-Map,openwsn.map -mcpu=cortex-m4 -mthumb -g3 -gdwarf-2 -o "openwsn.elf" ./src/main.o /home/xvilajosana/Development/tools/gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_7/bin/../lib/gcc/arm-none-eabi/4.7.3/../../../../arm-none-eabi/bin/ld: warning: cannot find entry symbol _start; defaulting to 00008000 Finished building target: openwsn.elf Invoking: ARM Linux GNU Create Flash Image arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex openwsn.elf "openwsn.hex" Finished building: openwsn.hex Invoking: ARM Linux GNU Create Listing arm-none-eabi-objdump -h -S openwsn.elf > "openwsn.lst" Finished building: openwsn.lst Invoking: ARM Linux GNU Print Size arm-none-eabi-size --format=berkeley openwsn.elf text data bss dec hex filename 44 0 0 44 2c openwsn.elf Finished building: openwsn.siz 15:49:03 Build Finished (took 114ms)