Newbie to AM3517 - help in which software compiler and JTAG

Jonathan,

some answers...

1) CodeSourcery compilers  are very popular and there are free versions that we use for our Linux development

You may use CCS for debugging but high-level stuff often just uses gdb and tools around that.

GUI applications can be easily and quickly developed using Qt but there are many other options. GTK+, Mono, X, just to name a few.

3) Again Qt is good and OS independent. You can of course use .Net compact framework on WinCE. I think this depends on your legacy software and knowhow.

Regards

Hi Frank

Thanks for the help, greatly appreciated.

1.) So I gather from your mail for high level programming, Codesourcery will be sufficient without investing in CCS then? Is there a need to debug AM3517 using JTAG and CCS - sorry for this dumb question. Or when will there be a need a need for JTAG debugging on AM3517? Just trying to save development cost.

3.) Can you kindly point me to the URL for free version of codesourcery? The official codesourcery charges quite a bit for their software.

How about Android for linux?

Code Sourcery Lite: http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm

If you use a high-level OS like Linux or WinCE you usually get a package that does not require low-level debug. However for bringing up your own hardware and/or driver development that might be needed. Having a debugger is always good and they are not that expensive anymore.

Android is available from different channels. But I am not an expert on this. Just google around or open a new thread here.

Hi Frank

So effectively we need to invest in 2 software package - codesourcery and QT (or others) to get AM3517 working with nice looking interface? Is there any single solution to achieve both?

CodeSourcery is just a compiler (in the lite version). If you buy a package it adds IDE and debug tools I think. That is basic stuff.

Qt is an application framework and there are open source and commercial versions available.

From my point of view it is a single solution. If you need more help you might consider one of our third parties for support. Nokia/Qt is also offering service.

Jonathan Geng said:

How about Android for linux?

Android is a good software stack to go with if you want an all in one GUI solution with no licensing costs, particularly if you like smart-phone like GUIs and want to write your high level application in java. Unfortunately at the moment I do not know of any full fledged Android ports for AM3517, there is an OMAP3 based project called Rowboat that may eventually take on this task, there was at least one thread discussing the possibility on their mailing list, but given the current status I would probably recommend an alternative for now (like Qt).

You may want refer to our wiki pages to get information on how to get a QT GUI running on top  of linux. Please see the following links :

http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/Building_Qt

http://wiki.davincidsp.com/index.php/Category:AM35x

Hope it helps.

Hi folks

Thanks for the advises, greatly appreciated. I've got perhaps a million dollar question to ask - will one go for Windows CE or Linux OS? Thinking of future expandability. Becos XP embedded does not support ARM chips so far.

Jonathan Geng said:

I've got perhaps a million dollar question to ask - will one go for Windows CE or Linux OS?

I generally see Linux as being more popular, particularly for smaller projects, though I only really work with Linux these days and not WinCE so I may be a bit biased. Assuming your system requirements are met by both and the individual shipping unit license cost is not an issue with WinCE, I would probably go with whatever OS your development team is more familiar with as that will gain you the best time to market.

Jonathan Geng said:

Thinking of future expandability. Becos XP embedded does not support ARM chips so far.

Both OSes have a future, Microsoft is still investing in newer versions of ARM based windows, and Linux is growing day by day with the community, it would be a gamble as to which would be better 10 years down the road. I would be a bit biased toward Android (a form of Linux) as that seems to be taking off all over the market.

Hi Bernie

Thanks for the stuff. Android is pretty much Java based tho it has some C portation functionality, we are pretty much C hardcore folks. Do you reckon Android is better than QT in this sense?

Jonathan Geng said:

Do you reckon Android is better than QT in this sense?

I would not say that it is better, you can have C support in both really, Qt is closer to C natively (C++) but can support other languages as well through bindings, but Android can have apps written in C as well through the Native Development Kit (NDK). This being said I am not sure how much it matters. Java seems to be popular these days for a lot of app development though, so if your application will have third party folks working on applications for it than the Android will likely be more scalable for you, for example if you are Android compliant you can run anything in the Android market. If you are doing everything in house than Android does not seem to buy you any more than Qt does, you may even be able to get more performance out of an optimized Qt system.

In general most of my work is done at the lower levels, with drivers and what not, which are all C outside of the high level app development flow (i.e. Linux kernel and multimedia stacks), so I cannot comment much on that experience, just what I know is supported. Hopefully someone who does more high level development on these systems can comment further on which would be better for writing everything in C.

Hi Bernie

We are developing both low and high level programs. Low level for SPI, I2C, Display driver comms. High level are GUI stuffs.

The thing that "worries" me a bit at the moment is the investment in tools that we need put out first. Some told us we need CCS for low level debug, Codesourcery + middleware like Android etc for high level. So it's several platform to run really.

May you let me know what software do you have been using for the low level drivers programming for AM3517, ie interfacing AM3517 to other devices? Think for high level, it might be Codesourcery + Android or QT.

Jonathan Geng said:

May you let me know what software do you have been using for the low level drivers programming for AM3517, ie interfacing AM3517 to other devices?

For better or worse the software I have used is somewhat limited, using Code Sourcery Lite as a code generation tool set, the majority of the driver development I have seen done with printk statements, fairly old fashioned debugging. I have not used an IDE debugger for kernel/driver development, though this is possible with tools like kgdb available with no licensing costs. If you want higher end tools they may not be free, I have heard of folks using Lauterbach emulators and RealView to do more advanced debugging, though such tools are costly, enough so that I have not had a chance to use them myself.

In general CCS will not help that much with Linux development, it is possible with the CortexA8 parts in CCSv4 however it can be a bit clunky. For the most part I would only use CCS for the lowest level debugging, primarily simple board bring up and validation tests, since it works best without any OS involved at all (or the BIOS RTOS from TI for the DSPs). If you are making a custom board I would probably suggest having at least one CCS install around at board bring up time, though you can probably get by with the free CCSv4 version and an XDS100v2 emulator for that purpose.

 Hi,

We at Pathpartner are done with the port of Android on AM3517, and would be uploading the patches pretty soon on http://code.google.com/p/am3517/ 

-Alexy