I'm developing a GPS application under Linux, with ARM7 microprocessor.
Which compiler do you recommend? Do you know if there is any toolkit with libraries ready to develop GPS applications?
A friend of mine recommended gcc... what do you guys think about it?
Thank you
I don't think that the compiler matters that much. What is more important is your precise understanding of the library you are using, or of the actual device you are invoking.
However, I will recommend GCC, and I do recommend using a very recent version of GCC. For instance, GCC 4.6.2 is appearing these days, and there have been lot of work recently put in GCC to improve its perfomance for ARM processors. So, if possible, us a 4.6 GCC, not a 4.3 one (some hardware vendors don't give recent GCC with their ARM development kit; you should consider in that case building your GCC (and perhaps binutils) from their source code.
I know nothing about GPS itself.
Related
I'm using a MIPS cross compiler on my Linux machine which works great.
Now I need to compile the same application on Windows.
I'm searching the web for some prebuilt MIPS cross compiler (with toolchain) for MS-Windows, but without success.
Since I'm not sure how to do so, I'm asking if someone knows such prebuilt toolchain? or some guide how to convert my Linux toolchain for windows if it's possible?
Thanks.
You should use Codescape MIPS SDK.
It looks like Mentor has taken away the free MIPS toolchain from the CodeSourcery distribution. Maybe one of these might still work: https://www.linux-mips.org/wiki/Toolchains.
I have started working on STM32F4 Discovery board and have compiled and run a few basic programs using the latest Yagarto toolchain containing the GCC 4.6.2. Lately though on several forums I have read that many toolchains including the latest Yagarto have problems when it comes to using the on-board hardware FPU. I have also read that the latest CodeSourcery toolchain does support hardware floating point, but not in the lite edition!!
While digging deep into the topic I found this toolchain which is specifically for ARM Cortex M/R controllers, and claims to have no problems when it comes to hardware FPU.
https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded
I wanted to know from users' experience, if the hardware FPU problems really exist in Yagarto? I am interested in using Yagarto because I also work on ARM7 and yagarto supports that as well. So instead of having different toolchains for different architectures, it is convineant to have one for both ARM7 and Cortex M/R.
If the FPU problems do really exist, then could anyone suggest me a good tried and tested toolchain for both ARM7 and Cortex M/R?
P.S. : I use CodeSourcery's latest GNU Linux toolchain for the BeagleBoard (Cortex A-8), havn't yet faced any issues with it.
I just wrote an article about using ARM's free GCC toolchain (GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors) and STLINK on Linux/Ubuntu to write/program/debug code for an STM32F4 Discovery Board (the F4 is a Cortex M4) - that may help you, the compiler does have hardware floating point support and I'm using it in my examples...
http://www.wolinlabs.com/blog/linux.stm32.discovery.gcc.html
I am a complete newbie to the ARM world. I need to be able to write C code, compile it, and then download into an ARM emulator, and execute. I need to use the GCC 4.1.2 compiler for the C code compilation.
Can anybody point me in the correct directions for the following issues?
What tool chain to use?
What emulator to use?
Are there tutorials or guides on setting up the tool chain?
building a gcc cross compiler yourself is pretty easy. the gcc library and the C library and other things not so much, an embedded library and such a little harder. Depends on how embedded you want to get. I have little use for gcclib or a c library so roll your own works great for me.
After many years of doing this, perhaps it is an age thing, I now just go get the code sourcery tools. the lite version works great. yagarto, devkitarm, winarm or something like that (the site with a zillion examples) all work fine. emdebian also has a good pre-built toolchain. a number of these places if not all have info on how they built their toolchains from gnu sources.
You asked about gcc, but bear in mind that llvm is a strong competitor, and as far as cross compiling goes, since it always cross compiles, it is a far easier cross compiler to download and build and get working than gcc. the recent version is now producing code (for arm) that competes with gcc for performance. gcc is in no way a leader in performance, other compilers I have used run circles around it, but it has been improving with each release (well the 3.x versions sometimes produce better code than the 4.x versions, but you need 4.x for the newer cores and thumb2). even if you go with gcc, try the stable release of llvm from time to time.
qemu is a good emulator, depending on what you are doing the gba emulator virtual gameboy advance is good. There are a couple of nds emulators too. GDB and other places have what appear to be ARMs own armulator. I found it hard to extract and use, so I wrote my own, but being lazy only implemented the thumb instruction set, I called mine the thumbulator. easy to use. Far easier than qemu and armulator to add peripherals to and watch and debug your code. ymmv.
Hmmm I posted a similar answer for someone recently. Google: arm verilog and at umich you will find a file isc.tgz in which is an arm10 behavioural (as in you cannot make a chip from it therefore you can find verilog on the net) model. Which for someone wanting to learn an instruction set, watching your code execute at the gate level is about as good as it gets. Be careful, like a drug, you can get addicted then have a hard time when you go back to silicon where you have relatively zero visibility into your code while it is executing. Somewhere in stackoverflow I posted the steps involved to get that arm10 model and another file or two to turn it into an arm emulator using icarus verilog. gtkwave is a good and free tool for examining the wave (vcd) files.
Above all else you will need the ARM ARM. (The ARM Architectural Reference Manual). Just google it and find it on ARM's web site. There is pseudo code for each instruction teaching you what they do. Use the thumbulator or armulator or others if you need to understand more (mame has an arm core in it too). I make no guarantees that the thumbulator is 100% debugged or accurate, I took some common programs and compared their output to silicon both arm and non-arm to debug the core.
Toolchain you can use Yagarto http://www.yagarto.de/
Emulator you can use Proteus ISIS http://www.labcenter.com/index.cfm
(There is a demo version)
and tutorials, well, google them =)
Good luck!
I've found a company that provides GCC based toolchains for ARM, MIPS but I don't know in what are they different from the vanilla GCC, of course, they bring other software pieces such as Eclipse, but when looking only at GCC and Binutils, are they different or just the same?
One big difference between a pre-compiled toolchain (like those provided by Code Sourcery, MontaVista, Wind River, etc) and one built from source is convenience. Building a toolchain from scratch, especially for cross-compiling purposes, is tedious and can be a complete pain. Also, the newest versions of glibc (or uClibc), gcc, and binutils aren’t always compatible as they're developed independently. There are open source tools to make this process easier (like crosstool-NG), but having a proven toolchain that’s been optimized for a certain platform can save a lot of time and headaches. This is especially true at the beginning of a new project. It also helps to have technical support when things go screwy. Of course…you have to pay for it most of the time.
That being said, compiling your own toolchain will most likely save you money and can allow more flexibility down the road. MontaVista, as far as I know, doesn’t include support for older platforms in their newest toolchain releases. For example, if you bought MontaVista Pro 4.X and it included a toolchain with gcc 3.3.X, that’s the toolchain you’re most likely going to be stuck with for the life of your project. Upgrading to a toolchain with gcc 4.X most likely wouldn’t be an option.
Hope that helps.
We've made a number of changes to gcc 3.3.2 (for MIPS) to support the vagaries of an embedded system we're working on. gcc 3.4 and later appear to have substantially improved the MIPS code generation, so I'm planning to port our changes forward. The question is which gcc version should I target: 3.4.4 or straight to 4.3.2? Its a substantial amount of work to port the changes, I don't want to do it twice and pick the better result.
The Linux-MIPS project still recommends gcc 3.4.4, and MIPS Technologies maintains a modified SDE toolchain based on gcc 3.4.4. Though my embedded system is not running Linux, I respect their expertise.
From what I've read the MIPS backend does not benefit from the higher level optimizations in 4.x, and actually produces slower code than 3.4.4. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
I haven't used MIPS since the classroom so I can't directly answer your question.
I would suggest sending an e-mail to someone on the Linux-MIPS project, and ask when they plan to upgrade. Assuming it is not soon. It looks like 3.4.4 is a worthy upgrade.