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Some examples for the GNU toolchain

Posted by mthomas

on Oct 11 2006 14:57 PM

Maybe interesting for users of the GNU-Toolchain
http://www.siwawi.arubi.uni-kl.de/avr_projects/arm_projects/index_cortex.html

Martin Thomas

Posted by TI - Eric Hewing

on Oct 13 2006 11:23 AM

Expert4160 points

I noticed the following text on the linked site:

This hardware can also be used to program and debug external targets (from Luminary and others i.e. by using OpenOCD)

That statement is not true. The DLL that interfaces to the Keil tools only works with Luminary devices since it is based on our DebugLib functions. Also, to my knowledge, OpenOCD does not support our devices (nobody has requested the DebugLib functions). Unless they implemented their own interface DLL, it is not supported.

As a side note, the DebugLib functions that the Keil DLL uses are available upon request from Luminary Micro. They are in static library format, compiled with Visual Studio 2005.

Thanks for making the GNU code available for others! I'm sure many people will find this useful.

Posted by mthomas

on Oct 13 2006 16:53 PM

Prodigy180 points

LMI Eric wrote:
I noticed the following text on the linked site:

This hardware can also be used to program and debug external targets (from Luminary and others i.e. by using OpenOCD)

That statement is not true. The DLL that interfaces to the Keil tools only works with Luminary devices since it is based on our DebugLib functions. Also, to my knowledge, OpenOCD does not support our devices (nobody has requested the DebugLib functions). Unless they implemented their own interface DLL, it is not supported.

Ok, the statement has been misleading. I wanted to mention that the FTDI2232-circut on the board could also be used as a JTAG-interface for targets with another ARM-core. OpenOCD supports this type of JTAG-interface. OOCD can not "handle" ARMv7/Cortex-M3 yet but targets based on other ARM-cores. I changed the text. If hope it's now clearer. Anyway: it's just an additional idea and I think it's off topic in this forum.

As a side note, the DebugLib functions that the Keil DLL uses are available upon request from Luminary Micro. They are in static library format, compiled with Visual Studio 2005.

For commercial tool-vendors a static library for MS-Windows might be interesting. But those who do not use a Microsoft OS can not use it. Maybe your company can extend OpenOCD by Cortex-M3-support and provide patches to the OpenOCD-developer(s). This will mean that you have to open your source-code but should also increase the number of your customers (users who run Linux, BSD, Mac-OS etc.).

Thanks for making the GNU code available for others! I'm sure many people will find this useful.

Thanks for providing the driver-libary and the examples.

Martin Thomas

Posted by c_oflynn

on Oct 16 2006 21:38 PM

Prodigy50 points

Hey,

Thanks for the link. I'm on Linux so was looking for GCC.. although from what I can tell, the contest itself HAS to be done in the provided Windows kit? Or at least made to compile in it for the final version...

Regards,

-Colin

Posted by englere

on Oct 22 2006 10:18 AM

Intellectual470 points

Maybe your company can extend OpenOCD by Cortex-M3-support and provide patches to the OpenOCD-developer(s). This will mean that you have to open your source-code but should also increase the number of your customers (users who run Linux, BSD, Mac-OS etc.).

It's possible to use a closed-source binary proxy as an intermediary between the USB Stack and an open source JTAG driver and/or debugger. This is being done with the msp430 USB BDM devices, which similarly use a proprietary protocol. The closed-source msp430-gdbproxy enables the use of the TI USB JTAG tool on both Windows and linux with the gdb debugger, and this is 100% free and redistributable.

Also, although the CodeSourcery gdb drivers only work on Windows, the same rules that permit the use of these closed source drivers on Windows would also allow them to be used on linux, assuming they wanted to do that. The biggest problem with the CodeSourcery solution is that it's not free, and even their personal-use license seems a bit expensive to me.

My experience is mostly on the Windows side, and I'd like to help make an appropriate closed-source driver for Windows that can inter-operate with open source debuggers, but be freely re-distributable (unlike the CodeSourcery drivers). Once done, I could work with linux experts to make it work on that platform.

I may also port my own visual debugger to support arm targets to give users a simpler debugging solution than gdb/Insight/Eclipse out-of-the-box. This would be not be up to the level of most commercial toolsets, but would be simple to use and free (and open source aside from that one one driver). My previous open source work has been for the Freescale hc12 devices.

Eric
http://www.ericengler.com/EmbeddedGNU.aspx
http://www.ericengler.com/Pluto.aspx

Posted by mthomas

on Oct 26 2006 14:07 PM

Prodigy180 points

c_oflynn wrote:
Thanks for the link. I'm on Linux so was looking for GCC.. although from what I can tell, the contest itself HAS to be done in the provided Windows kit? Or at least made to compile in it for the final version...

Yes, the contest-rules demand that "the project software must be developed using Keil's RealView Microcontroller Development Kit". Like you I think that this should mean the it must be possible to build the binary from the submitted source-code with the Keil-tools since it does not matter which tools have been used during development (I often prototype code for Microcontrollers with a PC application and there is no RealView for x86 targets). Since Keil/ARM is also sponsor of the contest I can understand this rule but users who can not effort the full license will face the 16kB-limit. With the GNU-tools there is (of cause) no size-limitation and it is not too difficult to port the code to the RealView tools before submission. I have tried to write a small "GNU to Realview porting"-document, preliminary but maybe useful: http://www.siwawi.arubi.uni-kl.de/avr_projects/arm_projects/Howto_gnu_rv.html

Regards,
Martin

Posted by orinem

on Nov 08 2006 12:27 PM

Intellectual470 points

Hi Martin,

I built your FreeRTOS port on Linux and ran into a couple of problems:

Some of your include paths have backslashes in them. Switching them to forward slashes will work on both Windows and Linux.

Linux filenames are case sensitive so I had to change Task.h to task.h in main.c.

Orin.

Posted by mthomas

on Nov 14 2006 08:43 AM

Prodigy180 points

orinem wrote:

I built your FreeRTOS port on Linux and ran into a couple of problems:

Some of your include paths have backslashes in them. Switching them to forward slashes will work on both Windows and Linux.

Linux filenames are case sensitive so I had to change Task.h to task.h in main.c.

Orin,

Thanks for the information. It's not my code. I have just done some small extensions/modifications and (obviously) just use OS from MS to test the build-process. As far as I can see most of the backslash/slash and upper-/lowercase issues are already in the original code found in the FreeRTOS-package. Can you provide a patch-file? Maybe Richard Barry is also interested.

Martin

Posted by orinem

on Nov 14 2006 12:38 PM

Intellectual470 points

mthomas wrote:
orinem wrote:

Orin,

Thanks for the information. It's not my code. I have just done some small extensions/modifications and (obviously) just use OS from MS to test the build-process. As far as I can see most of the backslash/slash and upper-/lowercase issues are already in the original code found in the FreeRTOS-package. Can you provide a patch-file? Maybe Richard Barry is also interested.

Martin

I think I have the original FreeRTOS code around. I'll take a look and post anything I find up on the FreeRTOS message board.

Orin.

Posted by mthomas

on Nov 16 2006 12:42 PM

Prodigy180 points

The incompatibilities with the directory-separators and upper/lowercase in filenames should be fixed now. Package has been updated.

Posted by c_oflynn

on Dec 24 2006 19:10 PM

Prodigy50 points

Hello again,

I was looking over the rules more carefully, and note that they demand:

project software must be developed using Keil’s RealView Microcontroller Development Kit.

Which to me sounds like perhaps GCC is go after all? The dev kit has an option to use GNU, so you can do all the development using that kit?

Regards,

-Colin

Post edited by: c_oflynn, at: 2006/12/24 19:56

Posted by englere

on Jan 03 2007 01:23 AM

Intellectual470 points

Which to me sounds like perhaps GCC is go after all? The dev kit has an option to use GNU, so you can do all the development using that kit?

But the gcc version that comes with Realview is quite old and doesn't support the Cortex Thumb-2.

As far as I can determine, the CodeSourcery gcc is the only flavor of gcc that supports these devices now.