| install_tools(3avr) | install_tools(3avr) |
install_tools - Building and Installing the GNU Tool Chain
This chapter shows how to build and install, from source code, a complete development environment for the AVR processors using the GNU toolset. There are two main sections, one for Linux, FreeBSD, and other Unix-like operating systems, and another section for Windows.
You can develop programs for AVR devices without the following tools. They may or may not be of use for you.
The default behaviour for most of these tools is to install every thing under the /usr/local directory. In order to keep the AVR tools separate from the base system, it is usually better to install everything into /usr/local/avr. If the /usr/local/avr directory does not exist, you should create it before trying to install anything. You will need root access to install there. If you don't have or want root access to the system, you can alternatively install in your home directory, for example, in $HOME/local/avr. Where you install is a completely arbitrary decision, but should be consistent for all the tools.
Warning
Note
You specify the installation directory by using the --prefix=dir option with the configure script. It is important to install all the AVR tools in the same directory or some of the tools will not work correctly. To ensure consistency and simplify the discussion, we will use $PREFIX to refer to whatever directory you wish to install in. You can set this as an environment variable if you wish as such (using a Bourne-like shell):
$ PREFIX=$HOME/local/avr $ export PREFIX
Note
$ PATH=$PATH:$PREFIX/bin $ export PATH
The instructions below build Binutils, GCC and AVR-LibC outside of the source tree, because:
The instructions below assume that you have set up a directory tree like
+--source +--build
in some place where you have write access, like in your home directory.
After successful downloads and builds, the tree will be something like:
+--source | +--gcc-<version> | +--binutils-<version> | +--avr-libc-<version> +-- build
+--gcc-<version>-avr
+--binutils-<version>-avr
+--avr-libc-<version>
The Binutils package provides all the low-level utilities needed in building and manipulating object files. Once installed, your environment will have an AVR assembler (avr-as), linker (avr-ld), and librarian (avr-ar and avr-ranlib). In addition, you get tools which extract data from object files (avr-objcopy), dissassemble object file information (avr-objdump), and strip information from object files (avr-strip). Before we can build the C compiler, these tools need to be in place.
Download and unpack the source files:
$ # in ./source $ tar xfj binutils-<version>.tar.bz2
Replace <version> with the version of the package you downloaded.
If you obtained a gzip compressed file (.tar.gz or .tgz), use gunzip instead of bunzip2, or tar xfz file.tar.gz.
The next step is to configure and build the tools. This is done by supplying arguments to the configure script that enable the AVR-specific options. When you also want GDB, just drop --disable-gdb.
$ # in ./build $ mkdir binutils-<version>-avr $ cd binutils-<version>-avr $ ../../source/binutils-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr \
--disable-nls --disable-sim --disable-gdb --disable-werror
When configure is run, it generates a lot of messages while it determines what is available on your operating system. When it finishes, it will have created several Makefiles that are custom tailored to your platform and that are run with the make command.
$ make
Note
If the tools compiled cleanly, you're ready to install them. If you specified a destination that isn't owned by your account, you'll need root access to install them. To install:
$ make install
You should now have the programs from Binutils installed into $PREFIX/bin. Don't forget to set your PATH environment variable before going to build avr-gcc. To check that the correct assembler is found, run
$ avr-as --version
which should print the <version> of the used Binutils
sources.
Warning
Before we can configure the compiler, we have to prepare the sources. GCC depends on some external host libraries, namely GMP, MPFR, MPC and ISL. You can build and install the appropriate versions of the required prerequisites by hand and provide their location by means of --with-gmp= etc. Though in most situations it is easier to let GCC download and build these libraries as part of the configure and build process. All what's needed is an internet connection when running ./contrib/download_prerequisites:
$ # in ./source $ tar xfj gcc-<version>.tar.bz2 $ cd gcc-<version> $ ./contrib/download_prerequisites $ # in ./build $ mkdir gcc-<version>-avr $ cd gcc-<version>-avr $ ../../source/gcc-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr --enable-languages=c,c++ \
--disable-nls --disable-libssp --disable-libcc1 \
--with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-dwarf2 $ make $ make install # or make install-strip
The GCC binaries may consume quite some disc space. In most cases, you don't need the debug information in the compiler proper, and installing with
$ make install-strip
can save you some space.
Warning
Note
To build and install AVR-LibC:
$ # in ./source $ tar xfz avr-libc-<version>.tar.gz $ # in ./build $ mkdir avr-libc-<version> $ cd avr-libc-<version> $ ../../source/avr-libc-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX \
--build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=avr $ make $ make install
Where the --build platform can be guessed by running
$ ./source/avr-libc-<version>/config.guess
Note
avrdude is part of the FreeBSD ports system. To install it, simply do the following:
# cd /usr/ports/devel/avrdude # make install
Note
Building and installing on other systems should use the configure system, as such:
$ gunzip -c avrdude-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd avrdude-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
SimulAVR also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c simulavr-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd simulavr-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
Note
Note
AVaRICE also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c avarice-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd avarice-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
Note
$ CPPFLAGS=-I<hdr_path> LDFLAGS=-L<lib_path> ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX
Building and installing the toolchain under Windows requires more effort because all of the tools required for building, and the programs themselves, are mainly designed for running under a POSIX environment such as Unix and Linux. Windows does not natively provide such an environment.
There are two projects available that provide such an environment, Cygwin and MinGW. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Cygwin provides a very complete POSIX environment that allows one to build many Linux based tools from source with very little or no source modifications. However, POSIX functionality is provided in the form of a DLL that is linked to the application. This DLL has to be redistributed with your application and there are issues if the Cygwin DLL already exists on the installation system and different versions of the DLL. On the other hand, MinGW can compile code as native Win32 applications. However, this means that programs designed for Unix and Linux (i.e. that use POSIX functionality) will not compile as MinGW does not provide that POSIX layer for you. Therefore most programs that compile on both types of host systems, usually must provide some sort of abstraction layer to allow an application to be built cross-platform.
MinGW does provide somewhat of a POSIX environment, called MSYS, that allows you to build Unix and Linux applications as they would normally do, with a configure step and a make step. Cygwin also provides such an environment. This means that building the AVR toolchain is very similar to how it is built in Linux, described above. The main differences are in what the PATH environment variable gets set to, pathname differences, and the tools that are required to build the projects under Windows. We'll take a look at the tools next.
These are the tools that are currently used to build an AVR tool chain. This list may change, either the version of the tools, or the tools themselves, as improvements are made.
Note
Doxygen is required to build AVR-LibC documentation.
NetPBM is required to build graphics in the AVR-LibC documentation.
fig2dev is required to build graphics in the AVR-LibC documentation.
MikTeX is required to build various documentation.
Ghostscript is required to build various documentation.
All directories in the PATH environment variable should be specified using their short filename (8.3) version. This will also help to avoid NTVDM errors during building. These short filenames can be specific to each machine.
Build the tools below in MinGW/MSYS.
CFLAGS=-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS \ ../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=avr \
--disable-nls \
--enable-doc \
--datadir=$installdir/doc/binutils \
2>&1 | tee binutils-configure.log
make all html install install-html 2>&1 | tee binutils-make.log
LDFLAGS='-L /usr/local/lib -R /usr/local/lib' \ CFLAGS='-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS' \ ../gcc-$version/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=$target \
--enable-languages=c,c++ \
--with-dwarf2 \
--enable-doc \
--with-docdir=$installdir/doc/$project \
--disable-shared \
--disable-libada \
--disable-libssp \
--disable-libcc1 \
--disable-nls \
2>&1 | tee $project-configure.log
make all html install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
./configure \
--host=avr \
--prefix=$installdir \
--enable-doc \
--disable-versioned-doc \
--enable-html-doc \
--enable-pdf-doc \
--enable-man-doc \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
--datadir=$installdir \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
export CPPFLAGS='-I../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include' export CFLAGS='-I../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include' export LDFLAGS='-L../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/lib/gcc'
./configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir \
--sysconfdir=$installdir/bin \
--enable-doc \
--disable-versioned-doc \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
make -k all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
CFLAGS=-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS \ LDFLAGS='-static' \ ../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=avr \
--with-gmp=/usr/local \
--with-mpfr=/usr/local \
--enable-doc \
2>&1 | tee insight-configure.log
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
./configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--infodir=$installdir/info \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
Build the tools below in Cygwin.
export CPPFLAGS=-I$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include export CFLAGS=-I$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include export LDFLAGS='-static -L$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/lib/gcc '
../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir/doc \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
--infodir=$installdir/info \
2>&1 | tee avarice-configure.log
make all install 2>&1 | tee avarice-make.log
export LDFLAGS='-static' ../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir \
--disable-tests \
--disable-versioned-doc \
2>&1 | tee simulavr-configure.log
make -k all install 2>&1 | tee simulavr-make.log make pdf install-pdf 2>&1 | tee simulavr-pdf-make.log
It is also possible to build avr-gcc for host Windows on a Linux build system. Suppose you have installed a i686-w64-mingw32-gcc toolchain that can compile code to run on host=i686-w64-mingw32. Then the steps to build a toolchain for Windows are:
avr-gcc --version
prints the compiler version according to the used GCC sources. The native AVR
cross compiler is required during configure and to build the AVR target
libraries like libgcc. Similarly, the version of the found AVR Binutils
programs must match the version of the used Binutils sources.
--build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=i686-w64-mingw32
This assumes that the required host libraries like GMP are being built in one
go with the compiler. This is accomplished by running the
contrib/download_prerequisites script from the toplevel GCC sources, just
like with the native build.
$ # in ./build/avr-libc-<version> $ make install prefix=$PREFIX-mingw32
In order to 'install' the toolchain on Windows, the canadian cross installed in $PREFIX-mingw32 can be moved to the desired location on the Windows computer. The compiler can be used by calling it by its absolute path, or by adding the $PREFIX-mingw32/bin directory to the PATH environment variable.
Most of the sources of the projects above are now managed with the git distributed version-control tools. When you want to build from the newest development branch, you can clone the repo, like with
$ git clone <repo> [dirname]
Replace <repo> with the URL of the Git repository, e.g.
https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc.git for AVR-LibC. Notice that when
building AVR-LibC from the repo source, you have to run ./bootstrap from
the top level AVR-LibC sources prior to configure.
Useful options for git clone:
$ git clone https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc.git ./source/avr-libc-main
Without dirname, the name of the git file like avr-libc is used.
When you want a different ref, like GCC's releases/gcc-14 for the head of the GCC v14 branch, or releases/gcc-14.1.0 for the GCC v14.1 release tag, then you can specify that as branch. To see the available refs, you can use
$ git ls-remote <repo>
| Version 2.2.1 | AVR-LibC |