[svlug] newer arm bare metal toolchain on Debian

[Ivan Sergio Borgonovo]

On 05/24/2016 06:24 PM, Michael Eager wrote:
>>>> For "no-brainer" I mean it has to have few steps and I don't have to
>>>> understand what I'm doing ;)

>>> Are you running native (host=target=ARM) or cross (host=x86, target=ARM).

>> The later. But since we are at it... is there any cheap board with an
>> enough fast CPU that won't make it a pain to compile stuff there?

> It depends on your pain threshold.  :-)   People used to do native
> ARM builds on Palm Pilots.  Slow.  Very slow.

I've been an early gentoo user. I'm not. I've learnt the lesson.
I feel no need to watch stuff scrolling in a terminal for days ;)

> Most of the ARM boards (Raspberry Pi, BeagleBoards, etc.) have the CPU
> power and memory to compile most programs natively.  Likely slower (or maybe
> significantly slower) than a cross build on a fast host.  Mount your file
> system using NFS, start the build, relax.  (For some packages, like perl,
> building natively is much easier than doing a cross build.)

I was thinking to something without a GPU to invest more money in CPU power.
But if you suggest me something in the neighborhood of BB or RPI I think 
there is nothing near to what I was wishing.

>> It seems simple enough.
>> I suppose that at the
>> ct-ng arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi (mutatis mutandis)
>> I'll be able to chose the path where I'd like to install all the tools
>> and keep them confined there. Is it?

> Yes, you can specify the install location.  CT-NG doesn't support all
> versions of GCC, so I don't know if it will have version with the fix you
> mentioned.

Well it seems it is not as simple as I hoped for.
I'm not sure which sample configuration I need to pick up and if it 
really fit.

The most promising for STM32F1 seems to be :
arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi
arm-unknown-eabi

Trying to edit them requires knowledge I don't have and I'm not prepared 
to acquire right now.

If I could just pick up one that barely worked I could at least test my 
hypothesis quickly.
I don't think having a tuned compiler will make my programs better so 
that's not a priority.

I think knowing a bit better this kind of tools could help consolidating 
toolchains management if you use more than one architecture and since it 
seems Debian is concentrating its effort on Linux cross toolchain rather 
than bare metal, I guess sooner or later I'll have to learn a bit more. 
My hope is that by the time I'll have to, these things will get easier 
to use and more documented.

I'll just try to see if
arm-bare_newlib_cortex_m3_nommu-eabi
works as it is tomorrow and avoid to go any further.

thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

I stumbled on http://elinux.org/Toolchains#Buildroot but knowing most of 
the tools I thought they were to build up a sysroot and not an 
independent bare metal toolchain.

crosstool-ng was the exception.

thanks

-- 
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it