Building the NEC V850 development tools for Linux

Introduction

Downloading the tool sources

GNU Binary Utilities

It is recommended that eCos is used with the most recent official release of the GNU Binary Utilities (binutils), currently version 2.10.1. This is available from the binutils area of the main GNU software download site or any of its mirror sites. It is also available at any of the mirror sites for sources.redhat.com. Download sizes are in the region of 5.5MB for .bz2 format archives, or 7MB for .gz format archives.

Weekly and daily snapshots from the CVS repository are also available from the main binutils development site, but these have not been verified for use with eCos.

If you already have binutils sources available but are unsure of their version, you can search the file gas/configure for the string "VERSION" and examine its value.

GNU Compiler Collection

eCos has been tested with the 2000-03-13 snapshot, but it is likely that later snapshots will fix bugs that have not yet been discovered. If you have compiler problems you may wish to consider updating to a more recent snapshot, or reverting to an older one. When downloading a snapshot from the GCC snapshot download area note that only the core compiler and C++ distributions are required (prefix gcc-core- and gcc-g++-).

Note that the instructions for building GCC here are only intended for use with eCos. In any other environment, the tools may not function correctly. Refer to the CrossGCC FAQ for details about building a standalone version of GCC.

It is strongly recommended you use a mirror site close to you, which will result in a faster download, reduced internet congestion, and reduced load on the central server.

GNU Debugger

Instructions for downloading the GNU Debugger (GDB) are provided on the GDB home page. However, Red Hat has also released an open source graphical front-end to GDB based on Tcl/Tk called Insight, which has a separate home page.

The Insight sources are a superset of the standard GDB sources. It is also still possible to run GDB in command-line mode by using the -nw command-line option when invoking GDB, so there is nothing to lose by using the Insight sources.

The latest release (version 5.0) is recommended and may be downloaded via the GDB home page. Alternatively, click on on one of following links to download the files directly:

• Insight 5.0 distribution (insight-5.0.tar.bz2 - 14MB)
• GDB 5.0 distribution (gdb-5.0.tar.bz2 - 9.1MB)

Preparing the sources for building

The following steps should be followed at a sh, ksh or bash prompt. Users of the csh and tcsh shells should replace 2>&1 with |& throughout:

1. Create a directory for each set of tool sources, avoiding directory names containing spaces as these can confuse the build system:

       mkdir -p /src/binutils /src/gcc /src/gdb
   

2. Extract the sources for each tool directory in turn. For bzip2 archives:

       cd /src/binutils
       bunzip2 < binutils-2.10.1.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
       cd /src/gcc
       bunzip2 < gcc-core-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
       bunzip2 < gcc-g++-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -
       cd /src/gdb
       bunzip2 < insight-5.0.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -

   For gzip archives:

       cd /src/binutils
       gunzip < binutils-2.10.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -
       cd /src/gcc
       gunzip < gcc-core-YYYYMMDD.tar.gz | tar xvf -
       gunzip < gcc-g++-YYYYMMDD.tar.gz | tar xvf -
       cd /src/gdb
       gunzip < insight-5.0.tar.gz | tar xvf -

   The following directories should be generated and populated during the extraction process:

       /src/binutils/binutils-2.10.1
       /src/gcc/gcc-YYYYMMDD
       /src/gdb/insight-5.0

   If the standard GDB source distribution was downloaded rather than Insight, then the GDB tools source directory will be /src/gdb/gdb-5.0 rather than /src/gdb/insight-5.0.

3. You may now need to apply a small number of source patches that are required to fix outstanding problems and add eCos support to the tools. Patches may be downloaded using most browsers by either shift-clicking or right-clicking on the link to the patch. You must not view the link and cut-and-paste because white space must be preserved exactly.

   If you are using a GCC snapshot dated 2000-03-20 or earlier, download the ecos-gcc-snap-cpp.pat patch to a file and apply it:

       cd /src/gcc/gcc-YYYYMMDD
       patch -p0 < ecos-gcc-snap-cpp.pat

   You must then reset the source file timestamps to ensure that makefile dependencies are handled correctly:

       contrib/gcc_update --touch

   If using Insight, download the insight-v850.pat patch to a file and apply it:

       cd /src/gdb/insight-5.0
       tr -d '\r' < insight-v850.pat | patch -p0

   If any of the patches fail to apply you should see if there is some obvious problem by attempting to apply the patch manually. If this is not possible, report the problem to the ecos-discuss mailing list.

   If the patch utility reports the following message:

       Reversed (or previously applied) patch detected! Assume -R? [n]

   then type n because this indicates the patch has already been applied in the master sources.

Building the tools

Approximate disk space requirements for building the development tools are as follows:

Following successful building and installation of each set of tools, the associated build tree may be deleted to save space if necessary. These instructions assume that the tools will be built in the /tmp/build directory hierarchy and installed to /tools. Other locations may be substituted throughout:

1. Configure the GNU Binary Utilities:

       mkdir -p /tmp/build/binutils
       cd /tmp/build/binutils
       /src/binutils/binutils-2.10.1/configure --target=v850-elf \
         --prefix=/tools \
         --exec-prefix=/tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu \
         -v 2>&1 | tee configure.out

   If there are any problems configuring the tools, you can refer to the file configure.out as a permanent record of what happened.

2. Build and install the GNU Binary Utilities:

       make -w all install 2>&1 | tee make.out

   If there are any problems building the tools, you can use the file make.out as a permanent record of what happened.

3. Configure GCC, ensuring that the GNU Binary Utilities are at the head of the PATH:

       PATH=/tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin:$PATH ; export PATH    (for sh, ksh and bash users)
       set path = ( /tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin $path )        (for csh and tcsh users)
       mkdir -p /tmp/build/gcc
       cd /tmp/build/gcc
   
       /src/gcc/gcc-YYYYMMDD/configure --target=v850-elf \
         --prefix=/tools \
         --exec-prefix=/tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu \
         --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-newlib \
         -v 2>&1 | tee configure.out

4. Build and install GCC:

       make -w all-gcc install-gcc \
         LANGUAGES="c c++" 2>&1 | tee make.out

5. Configure Insight:

       mkdir -p /tmp/build/gdb
       cd /tmp/build/gdb
       /src/gdb/insight-5.0/configure --target=v850-elf \
         --prefix=/tools \
         --exec-prefix=/tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu \
         -v 2>&1 | tee configure.out

6. Build and install Insight:

       make -w all install 2>&1 | tee make.out

Troubleshooting

• Binutils mailing list
• GDB mailing list
• CrossGCC mailing list (for problems specific to GCC cross-compilation)
• GCC mailing list (for more general GCC problems)

• Binutils home page
• GDB home page
• Insight home page
• GCC web site
• CrossGCC FAQ