CCS/CCSTUDIO-SITARA: Linaro GCC version

Arun,

The GCC that we ship with CCS is really meant for use with Cortex M and R cores.  

The Processor SDK typically bundles the compilers that are recommended for use.  This is what I could find in the Processor SDK release notes.   Here it looks like they are recommending the GNU Arm Embedded 7-2018-q2 release.  

The following compilers are bundled with the SDK installer:

Thanks for the info John, can you tell me where you got the table from? If I'm not mistaken, the GNU ARM Embedded is the newer version of Linaro that still supports R and M processors? To clarify, The GNU Embedded Toolchain for Arm (for R and M) is different fromThe GNU Toolchain for the Cortex-A Family?

Arun,

I found the table in this document: http://software-dl.ti.com/processor-sdk-rtos/esd/docs/06_01_00_08/rtos/index_release_specific.html

I will leave it to the Sitara team to comment on what they mean by each row name.

Note that in current CCS versions the GCC we bundle is actually the GNU Arm Embedded one.  CCS shows the version with "(Linaro)" beside it as we used to bundle the Linaro bare-metal (not the Linux abi) release and it thinks that is what it is.

I am on mac so I can't test this out but I do believe that the tools we bundle support Cortex A8 and A9 in addtion to M and R.  However the tools are recommended for use with M and R.  I recall using them with a beaglebone in the base which is an A8.  Personally I would use the tools that come with the Processor SDK.

Regards,

John

Thanks for the info Frank. Is there a reason why we use GNU ARM Embedded (targeting M and R) as opposed to GNU Toolchain for the Cortex-A Family for the A cores?

Hi Arun,

I'm consulting on this internally. Can you please point me to documentation indicating gcc-arm-none-eabi-7-2018-q2 is optimized for R&M cores? Also, is there documentation for a GCC compiler optimized for A cores released around the same time?

Thanks,
Frank

https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-rm

Thanks for the link  to the M & R cores JohnS ... here is the link to the Cortex A optimized GNU

https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-a/downloads

I quote "

We are pleased to announce the Arm release of the pre-built GNU cross-toolchain for the A-profile cores: GCC 9.2-2019.12.

This is the same toolchain that was previously distributed by Linaro."

Arun, John,

Thanks for sharing the links. I'm continuing to follow up on this.

On this page: https://developer.arm.com/tools-and-software/open-source-software/developer-tools/gnu-toolchain/gnu-rm I see links to:

• 7-2017q4-major release (used by CCS 9.3)
• 7-2018q2-update release (used by PRSDK 6.1.0.8).

So it's clear GNU toolchain optimized for R&M cores is being used for AM437x A9 (as well as the other platform in the table shared by John).

Regards,
Frank