Preface

I have not a strong knowledge on Linux, but I know that Linux is the cradle of every idea is based on open source philosophy. For this reason I started working at this demo. For sure any Linux developer knows how to use Eclipse for embedded application development, so please consider this web page as my personal note I use to start discovering the Linux world. I will appreciate any comment and any suggestion to improve this work.

Moreover, this demo is the porting on Linux of my Windows experience, so  feel free to look at the Windows STM32 demo for more information on the demo.

Introduction

I use only Open source or free software to develop this demo. Ubuntu 10.4 is my preferred Linux distribution due of its easy of use - as I wrote above, I have not much expertise on Linux! :-). I download the ISO image and install it on my machine keeping all default options during the installation process. Ubuntu provide a simple graphical tool to add additional packages and the powerful shell based Advanced Packaging Tool (APT). They are very simple to use, but sometime I don't use it in order to have the latest version of a tool.

By default I install all tools in ~/Application folder in the user domain.

Developer environment setup

1. Install the ARM EABI Lite version of the CodeSourcery G++ development tools. I use version 2010q1-888. Download the IA32 GNU/Linux Installer. To launch the graphical installer use this command from the command line: sh arm-2010q1-18-arm-none-eabi.bin
2. Ensure that the Do not modify PATH option is selected.
   
3. Install the Java Runtime Environment (JRE):
• Chose the Add/Remove command from the Applications menu
  
• Type "Java" in the search field, check the Sun Java 6 Runtime or OpenJDK Java 6 and press the Apply Changes button.

4. Download and install Eclipse Helios. Eclipse foundation provides many packages each one suitable for a particular development. The Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers is a good starting point for embedded application. To install Eclipse extract the archive content in the installation folder (~/Applications in my case).
5. Download and install OpenOCD.On February 13th, 2009 the developer group released the first official distribution, but it is a very active project. For this reason I prefer to install OpenOCD from the source code. I first need to install some development tools in order to be able to download the latest source code, compile it and install it. Lets go...
• Open the Terminal application and type the command git. The shell notifies that git is not installed and suggests how to get it using APT.
• Use the command sudo apt-get install git-core.
  
• Insert your password when required and follow the on screen instruction.
  
• Install the build-essential package using the command sudo apt-get install build-essential.
• Install the patch tool using the command sudo apt-get install patch.
• Inslall the automake tool using the command sudo apt-get install automake1.10. 
• Install the libusb-dev package using the command sudo apt-get install libusb-dev. It is needed to compile OpenOCD with Versaloon support.
• Install the libtool package using the command sudo apt-get install libtool.
• Install the texinfo package using the command sudo apt-get install texinfo. It is needed to build the OpenOCD documentation.
• Install the TeX package using the command sudo apt-get install texlive. It is needed to build the OpenOCD documentation.
6. Now I'm ready to install OpenOCD. I use a script to automatically do the job.
• Download the OpenOCD_v2.0beta.tar.gz archive at the bottom of this page.
• The archive contain a folder named OpenOCD. Extract the archive content in the destination folder
  
• Make sure the internet connection is up.
  
• Use the command ./update from the OpenOCD folder in the Terminal application to download the last sources from the remote OpenOCD repository, build it, install it. If you want generate the documentation in pdf format use the command make pdf. Below is the content of the OpenOCD folder when the script ended.
  
  
  
• The script download the latest sources in the openocd folder. If you have build the documentation, you find the openocd.pdf manual is in the openocd/doc folder. Make places the final executable in the openocd/src folder.  Please, insert your password when required to allow make to install openocd in the /usr/local/bin folder
• Sometime the script fails because the last version of OpenOCD is under development. If the script fails, try to install an older version by passing the version number to the script as a parameter. [This features is not supported at the moment. Sorry!]
  
7. The latest step is to install the Versaloon driver and configure our Linux distribution in order to use it.
• Blacklist cdc_acm.
  cdc_acm is used by default if a CDC device is connected.
  But if cdc_acm is used, libusb will fail to operate Versaloon.
  Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf with root permissions by appending blacklist cdc_acm.
• Reconnect Versaloon, cdc_acm will not be loaded automatically. Use the dmesg command to verify that cdc_Acm is not loaded.
• Now Versaloon (the hardware IF) is ready to be used to flash the MCU and debug the application, but in Ubuntu driver module can't be accessed in user mode. So I should run sudo openocd ...
• To use Versaloon as non-root user, I configure the rules of udev:
• Download the 60-versaloon.rules file at the bottomo of this page.
• Copy it into /etc/udev/rules.d/ with sudo: sudo cp 60-versaloon.rules /etc/udev/rules.d.
• Replug Versaloon.

Eclipse Configuration

Please refer to the "Developer environment setup" section of the "Eclipse demo(STM32)" web page for general information on Eclipse configuration. Read also this web page containing information specific to Eclipse Ganymede. Following are some details to Linux specific configuration.

1. To tell Eclipse how to find the CodeSourcery tool chain select the Properties command from the Project menu.
   
2. In the "Properties for RTOSDemo" dialog select the Environment panel.
   
3. Press the Add... button to add a new Project specific environment variable.
   Type "PATH" in the Name field, and "${PATH}:<CODESOURCERY_ROOT>/bin" in the "Value" field.
   
4. Press OK to confirm.
5. Select the Debug Configuration... command from the Run menu.
6. Select the RTOSDemo configuration under the GDB Hardware Debugging tree item.
   
7. Select the Debugger tab.
8. Insert the full path of the arm-none-eabi-gdb executable in the GDB Command field.
9. Press the Apply button to confirm.

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