GCC error with -mcpu32 flag, CPU32 compiler needed - gcc

I am patching code into my car's ECU. This has a Motorola MC68376 processor, so I'm using the appropriate CPU32 instruction set.
I want to continue to write in assembly code so that I can explicitly manage control registers, RAM access and allocation, as well as copying code structures which are already in use.
My first patch was successfully compiled in EASy68k, but that program does not support the full instruction set for the CPU32. For example, the DIVS.L command is not supported, so I cannot take a quotient of a 32-bit value.
Thus, before writing my own compiler out of sheer incompetence with available tools, I'm looking for an easier path. I read that gcc has the capability to compile code for the CPU32, but I have failed to get it to work.
I'm using MinGW's gcc (6.3.0) and Eclipse (2020-03). I added the '-mcpu32' or '-march=cpu32' flags to the compiler call, according to:
https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/M680x0-Options.html
Unfortunately this returns an error:
gcc: error: unrecognized command line option '-mcpu32'; did you mean '-mcpu='?
or
error: bad value (cpu32) for -march= switch
May I please have some advice for making this work? Does anyone know of a better CPU32 compiler that works with Eclipse?

I did not understand that gcc is conventionally distributed as binary files that are compiled with different functionality to suit the needs of a given user.
There seem to be two paths forward:
1) compile my own cross-compiler version of GCC
2) download a pre-compiled cross-compiler version of GCC
I chose to follow route 2).
I began the process of installing the 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' and Ubuntu 20.04 Focal Fossa, because I found a pre-made compiler that should be capable of performing cross compilation for the m68k processor: "gobjc-10-m68k-linux-gnu"
https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/20.04/ubuntu-universe-i386/gobjc-10-m68k-linux-gnu_10-20200411-0ubuntu1cross1_i386.deb.html
While I was installing that, I also found an m68k-elf gcc toolchain that is pre-compiled for windows 10:
https://gnutoolchains.com/m68k-elf/
I played with the latter for much of today. Although I was unable to get the toolchain integrated well with Eclipse, it works from the command line to compile a *.s assembly code file. This includes compatibility with the '-mcpu32' flag that I wanted at the outset.
There is still a lot for me to figure out, even after floundering through learning gcc's assembler directives (https://www.eecs.umich.edu/courses/eecs373/readings/Assembler.pdf) and the differences in gcc's assembly syntax compared to the MC68k reference manual (https://www.nxp.com/files-static/archives/doc/ref_manual/M68000PRM.pdf).
I can even convert the code section of the output file to be a proper s-record by using objcopy with the '-O srec' and '--only-section=.text' flags. This helps me patch the code into my ECU.
Thus I've answered my original question.

Related

ld: too many sections (90295)

I am trying to build a haskell project from Ludum Dare, but whenever I attempt the build I get an error message saying the object file has too many sections. Here is the error:
C:\Users\REDACTED\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\ghc-8.10.2\lib\../mingw/bin\ld.exe: .stack-work\dist\a3a5fe88\build\HSsingletons-2.7-J1xRPYS9ah3kGEIOoeLuX.o: too many sections (90295)
singletons > C:\Users\REDACTED\AppData\Local\Programs\stack\x86_64-windows\ghc-8.10.2\lib\../mingw/bin\ld.exe: final link failed: file too big
-- While building package singletons-2.7 using:
C:\Users\REDACTED\AppData\Local\Temp\stack-5ba10ebdb151d9fa\singletons-2.7\.stack-work\dist\a3a5fe88\setup\setup --builddir=.stack-work\dist\a3a5fe88 build --ghc-options " -fdiagnostics-color=always"
Process exited with code: ExitFailure 1
I am using stack 2.3.3 and Windows 10. The project uses the vulkan library.
I tried adding -opta-mbig-obj, but gcc then failed with error: unrecognized command line option '-mbig-obj'
It looks like you may need to try explicitly using the “large object” file format, which I believe you can do by adding -opta-mbig-obj or -Wa,-mbig-obj to the GHC flags in the project’s build config (package.yaml or .cabal file) to add -mbig-obj to the assembler options. You may also need to add --oformat pe-bigobj-x86-64 to the linker flags, using (I think) -optl--oformat -optlpe-bigobj-x86-64 or -Wl,--oformat,pe-bigobj-x86-64. Are you using a 32-bit MinGW? I would expect MinGW64 to handle this by default. (And I’m not actually sure whether 32-bit supports these flags, so you may need to upgrade anyway.)
Since about a year ago (https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/commit/1ef90f990da90036d481c830d8832e21b8f1571b) GHC already uses the -mbig-obj and --oformat,pe-bigobj-x86-64 when assembling and linking on 64 bit MinGW. Adding these flags manually will not help on recent GHC versions.
I was able to replicate this problem for both the sdl2 and vulkan Haskell packages using Stack, however neither of them exhibit this issue when compiled with Cabal (and --enable-split-sections) on Windows; this looks to be a bug in stack.

Cross-compiling baremetal Rust for Raspberry Pi 3 B from Windows

I'm trying to follow this blog but on Windows and with the latest Rust. It seems to me that the correct way of doing things like this is changing very frequently with Rust, so I'm hoping for an up-to-date Windows adaptation.
What I've tried so far:
I installed gcc-arm-embedded.
I had unverified partial success manually cross-compiling libcore, but then I switched to use the recommended xargo, the functionality of which (I read) is on its way to being included in Cargo eventually. While I don't understand any of it very well, I'm hoping to get to the part where I can write/run the code and then maybe I can back into understanding the compilation better.
With japaric's awesome help, I was able to get the "aarch64" targeted build working to generate the .o file (as of this particular commit).
And this part seems to verify:
$ file target/aarch64-raspi3-none-elf/release/deps/rust_rasp-ed0c2377e0a7df81.o
target/aarch64-raspi3-none-elf/release/deps/rust_rasp-ed0c2377e0a7df81.o: ELF 64-bit LSB relocatable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (SYSV), not stripped
When I try to use the GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain linker, I get:
$ arm-none-eabi-gcc -O0 -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=hard -march=armv6zk -mtune=arm1176jzf-s -nostartfiles target/aarch64-raspi3-none-elf/release/deps/rust_rasp-ed0c2377e0a7df81.o -o kernel.elf target/aarch64-raspi3-none-elf/release/deps/rust_rasp-ed0c2377e0a7df81.o: file not recognized: File format not recognized
collect2.exe: error: ld returned 1 exit status
And #rust IRC chatroom helpfuls told me that rpi3 is aarch64, not arm, so I need to find an aarch64 linker ...
I think it's working! Things I learned:
xargo is good
rpi3 is different enough from rpi2 to cause my problems in tool selection
xargo doesn't care what toolchain rustup defaults to because I'm not asking it to link for me and it does its own toolchain selection
I needed to target aarch64, not arm. For this I used the linaro aarch64 mingw32 download, unpacked, added its bin folder to my PATH. Then the aarch64 tools were easy to adapt from the blog.
For people who want to do this themselves, see https://github.com/JasonKleban/rust-rasp . Not so complicated!
I aim to blink the onboard activity led as confirmation that we do really have control, but looks like that will be kinda complicated on the rpi3 (see my readme, if still applicable)

GCC built from source in different location is incorrectly using same shared libs as native GCC

I'm a student doing research involving extending the TM capabilities of gcc. My goal is to make changes to gcc source, build gcc from the modified source, and, use the new executable the same way I'd use my distro's vanilla gcc.
I built and installed gcc in a different location (not /usr/bin/gcc), specifically because the modified gcc will be unstable, and because our project goal is to compare transactional programs compiled with the two different versions.
Our changes to gcc source impact both /gcc and /libitm. This means we are making a change to libitm.so, one of the shared libraries that get built.
My expectation:
when compiling myprogram.cpp with /usr/bin/g++, the version of libitm.so that will get linked should be the one that came with my distro;
when compiling it with ~/project/install-dir/bin/g++, the version of libitm.so that will get linked should be the one that just got built when I built my modified gcc.
But in reality it seems both native gcc and mine are using the same libitm, /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libitm.so.1.
I only have a rough grasp of gcc internals as they apply to our project, but this is my understanding:
Our changes tell one compiler pass to conditionally insert our own "function builtin" instead of one it would normally use, and this is / becomes a "symbol" which needs to link to libitm.
When I use the new gcc to compile my program, that pass detects those conditions and successfully inserts the symbol, but then at runtime my program gives a "relocation error" indicating the symbol is not defined in the file it is searching in: ./test: relocation error: ./test: symbol _ITM_S1RU4, version LIBITM_1.0 not defined in file libitm.so.1 with link time reference
readelf shows me that /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libitm.so.1 does not contain our new symbols while ~/project/install-dir/lib64/libitm.so.1 does; if I re-run my program after simply copying the latter libitm over the former (backing it up first, of course), it does not produce the relocation error anymore. But naturally this is not a permanent solution.
So I want the gcc I built to use the shared libs that were built along with it when linking. And I don't want to have to tell it where they are every time - my feeling is that it should know where to look for them since I deliberately built it somewhere else to behave differently.
This sounds like the kind of problem any amateur gcc developer would have when trying to make a dev environment and still be able to use both versions of gcc, but I had difficulty finding similar questions. I am thinking this is a matter of lacking certain config options when I configure gcc before building it. What is the right configuration to do this?
My small understanding of the instructions for building and installing gcc led me to do the following:
cd ~/project/
mkdir objdir
cd objdir
../source-dir/configure --enable-languages=c,c++ --prefix=/home/myusername/project/install-dir
make -j2
make install
I only have those config options because they seemed like the ones closest related to "only building the parts I need" and "not overwriting native gcc", but I could be wrong. After the initial config step I just re-run make -j2 and make install every time I change the code. All these steps do complete without errors, and they produce the ~/project/install-dir/bin/ folder, containing the gcc and g++ which behave as described.
I use ~/project/install-dir/bin/g++ -fgnu-tm -o myprogram myprogram.cpp to compile a transactional program, possibly with other options for programs with threads.
(I am using Xubuntu 16.04.3 (64 bit), within VirtualBox on Windows. The installed /usr/bin/gcc is version 5.4.0. Our source at ~/project/source-dir/ is a modified version of 5.3.0.)
You’re running into build- versus run-time linking differences. When you build with -fgnu-tm, the compiler knows where the library it needs is found, and it tells the linker where to find it; you can see this by adding -v to your g++ command. However when you run the resulting program, the dynamic linker doesn’t know it should look somewhere special for the ITM library, so it uses the default library in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu.
Things get even more confusing with ITM on Ubuntu because the library is installed system-wide, but the link script is installed in a GCC-private directory. This doesn’t happen with the default GCC build, so your own GCC build doesn’t do this, and you’ll see libitm.so in ~/project/install-dir/lib64.
To fix this at run-time, you need to tell the dynamic linker where to find the right library. You can do this either by setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH (to /home/.../project/install-dir/lib64), or by storing the path in the binary using -Wl,-rpath=/home/.../project/install-dir/lib64 when you build it.

ARM toolchain for ubuntu Error while compiling

I am trying to make the ARM toolchain in ubuntu. The way it is specified in http://hri.sourceforge.net/tools/arm-elf-gcc.html
I am getting the following error:
Configuring for a x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu host.
Invalid configuration `x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu': machine `x86_64-unknown' not recognized
Invalid configuration `x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu': machine `x86_64-unknown' not recognized
Unrecognized host system name x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.
does anybody have idea whats going wrong here.
A Google-search on the "machine `x86_64-unknown' not recognized" error message indicates that this can happen if the config.guess and config.sub files in the program you're building are too old to recognize the machine type for 64-bit linux. I expect that's your problem. You can fix that by replacing the ones in your GCC source tree with newer versions; your system should have some in the /usr/share/libtool directory that will work. Alternately, compile in a 32-bit Linux installation, or with "--build=i686-pc-linux-gnu --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu" configure options.
There are also copies here:
http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/*checkout*/config/config/config.guess
http://savannah.gnu.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs/*checkout*/config/config/config.sub
The real question, though, is: Why you are trying to build a version of the ARM toolchain that's that old? The directions on the site you link to will lead you to download the sources for the 2.95.3 version of GCC -- which was released nearly a decade ago. In GCC terms, that's positively ancient; the latest version is 4.5. It's older than a lot of ARM instruction-set changes, too.
Thus, the right solution to your problem, unless you have some specific need for a 2.95 compiler, is to get a version of GCC that's much more recent.
Also, you'll probably save some pain by not compiling it yourself, unless you particularly want to. There are numerous sources of precompiled cross-compilers; since I work at CodeSourcery, I'll recommend ours (which you can download and use for free):
http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm/portal/subscription?#template=lite. If you want something equivalent to the compiler on the page you linked to, you probably want the "uClinux" version.

seg fault when running arm-elf-gcc compiled code

Using MacPorts i have just installed arm-elf-gcc on to my MacBook Pro. This worked flawlessly and all seems to run fine.
However, after compiling a simple hello world test program in C and C++ and trying to run either on the target board (an ARM9 based board running Debian Linux) they immediately seg fault.
I'm a bit stuck as how to go about debugging this, as the target board has limited tools available and no gdb. I have successfully built and run other code using a Linux hosted cross compiler so it should work.
Any ideas?
Following the suggestion I have built and run gdbserver, I get the following in gdb on the host:
Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x00000000 in ?? ()
I thought it may be a problem with the standard c libs so I removed any calls and have just an empty main that return 0, it is compiled with -Wall -g hello-arm.cpp -static. As a test I compiled the same source with a Linux hosted cross compiler and it runs and exits fine. The only difference I can see is the that Linux compiled version is over twice the size and the difference in output from the file command:
arm-elf-gcc: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1, statically linked, not stripped
arm-*-linux: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1, statically linked, for GNU/Linux 2.4.18, not stripped
The usual method of debugging in this situation is to run gdbserver on the target board, and connect to it (via ethernet) with gdb running on a host computer.
Alternately, you could try comparing the assembly in a Mac-compiled "Hello World" program and a (working) Linux-compiled one to see what's different.
After digging around for a couple of days I am starting to understand a bit more about embedded compilers. I wasn't really sure of the difference between arm-elf-gcc installed via MacPorts and the arm-unknown-linux toolchain I had installed on my Linux box. I just came across a pdf titled "An introduction to the GNU compiler" which contains the following paragraph:
Important: Using the GNU Compiler to
create your executable is not quite
the same as using the GNU Linker,
arm-elf-ld, yourself. The reason is
that the GNU Compiler automatically
links a number of standard system
libraries into your executable. These
libraries allow your program to
interact with an operating system, to
use the standard C library functions,
to use certain language features and
operations (such as division), and so
on. If you wish to see exactly which
libraries are being linked into the
executable, you should pass the
verbose flag
-v to the compiler.
This has important implications for
embedded systems! Such systems do not
usually have an operating system.
This means that linking in the system
libraries is almost always
meaningless: if there is no operating
system, for example, then calling the
standard printf function does not make
much sense.
So when I get back to my dev machine later I will determine the libraries linked in with the Linux build and add them to the arm-elf-gcc build.
I'll update this when I have more information but I just want to document my findings in case any one else has these problems.

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