Bluewind: ARM Toolchain Docs

ARM Toolchain documentation

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Here you will find a short guide on how to configure, build and install GCC as a cross-compiler for Linux Systems. Our experience refers to a RedHat 6.2 Linux System running on an Intel Celeron host and to an arm-elf target.

Comments about this page and discussions about other experiences can be initiated by first

What you need

The build procedure

Screenshots

Arm-elf development tools for eCos

Related documents

What you need

First of all let's see which files, libraries and packages are needed:

1. Binutils (binutils-2.10.tar.gz, 7,1MB)

2. GCC (gcc-2.95.2.tar.gz, 12,6MB

3. Newlib (newlib-1.8.2.tar.gz, 3MB)

4. GDB or, better, Insight (insight5.0.tar.gz, 18,4MB)

These pieces have to be built and installed in a particular order, that is the one given. Why? Clearly the cross-compiler is needed to build the libraries, so GCC must be built before Newlib. Also, GCC has its own library (called libgcc) so Binutils must be built before GCC. Finally Insight can be added. GDB, the GNU line command debugger, can be built alone, but it is better working with Insight, that gives a nice GUI to GDB.

Next to each component it has been reported the version that BlueWind used to build its own ARM toolchain, but for every component it is better to download the latest version you can find from some of these ftp sites:

GNU ftp	Here you can find a GNU FTP site mirror list, in which there will probably be mirrors less busy and closer to your site than the GNUftp site. In this way you will find the fastest way to get Binutils and GCC.
Newlib	This is the ftp site where you can find and download Newlib latest version.
Insight	Here is the official Insight page where you can all the information tou need and, obviously, a download section.
GDB	If you want to use a simple line command debugger you can find GDB files looking for them in GNU ftp.

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The build procedure

Suppose:

you have unpacked all the sources into /home/dir_for_unpacked_files; you can do this in the following way:
- home/> mkdir mytmp
- home\> cd mytmp
- then you copy in mytmp the *.gz.tar files previously listed and for each one you use the command:
  home/mytmp/> gunzip nomefile.tar.gz | tar xvf -
you want to build a i686-pc-linux hosted arm-elf cross-compiler (that is our case, but you can use the same procedure to build a cross-GCC for other machines);
the cross-compiler is to be installed in a directory called /tools.

Let's see then how the build procedure would look like:

> cd home/mytmp home/mytmp/> host=i686-pc-linux home/mytmp/> target=arm-elf home/mytmp/> prefix=/tools home/mytmp/> i=$/tools/bin mkdir build-bin build-gcc build-new build-ins
Configure, build and install binutils:

home/mytmp/> cd build-bin home/mytmp/build-bin/> ../binutils-2.10/configure --target=$target \ --prefix=$prefix -v home/mytmp/build-bin/> make all install
At this point the directory /tools/bin has to be added to the environment variable PATH:

home/mytmp/build-bin/> export PATH home/mytmp/build-bin/> PATH=/tools/bin:$PATH
Configure, build and install gcc:

home/mytmp/build-bin/> cd ../build-gcc home/mytmp/build-gcc/> cd ../gcc-2.95.2/configure --target=$target \ --prefix=$prefix -v --with-gnu-as \ --with-gnu-ld --with-gnu-newlib home/mytmp/build-gcc/> make all install
Configure, build and install newlib:

home/mytmp/build-gcc/> cd ../build-new home/mytmp/build-new/> cd ../newlib-1.8.2/configure --target=$target \ --prefix=$prefix -v
Note that the green highlighted settings are not necessary if, as we did, $prefix/bin is put in the path before running this:

home/mytmp/build-new/> make all install \
CC_FOR_TARGET=$i/${target}-gcc \ AS_FOR_TARGET=$i/${target}-as \ LD_FOR_TARGET=$i/${target}-ld \ AR_FOR_TARGET=$i/${target}-ar \ RANLIB_FOR_TARGET=$i/${target}-ranlib
Configure, build and install insight

home/mytmp/build-new/> cd ../build-ins home/mytmp/build-ins/> cd ../insight-5.0/configure --target=$target \ --prefix=$prefix -v home/mytmp/build-ins/> make all install

Approximate disk space requirements for building the development tools are as follows:

Tool	Build	Install
Binary Utilities	35MB	25MB
GCC	45MB	25MB
Insight	110MB	140MB
TOTAL	185MB	75MB

Following successful building and installation of each set of tools, the associated build tree may be deleted to save space if necessary.

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Arm-elf development tools for eCos

BlueWind is also interested in eCos, the embedded configurable operating system, is an open source real-time operating system for deeply embedded applications. It meets the requirements of the embedded space that Linux cannot yet reach. Linux currently scales from a minimal size of around 500 kilobytes of kernel and 1.5MB of RAM, all before taking into consideration application and service requirements. eCos provides the basic runtime infrastructure necessary to support devices with memory footprints in the 10's to 100's of kilobytes, or with real-time requirements.
ECos is in BlueWind interest because there are some ARM processors and derivatives (Cirrus Logic) as supported targets that we are working with. To carry out a complete eCos ARM development kit running under Linux or Windows systems you can read the relative documents mentioned in the Documents section.

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	Screenshots Insight windows on a Gnome environment.
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