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eCos

Installing eCos 1.3.1 under Linux

Downloading eCos

The latest development versions of eCos are now provided via the eCos anonymous CVS repository, and it is strongly recommended that wherever possible this mechanism is used in preference to downloading eCos 1.3.1. eCos 1.3.1 does not have the functionality, platform coverage, nor bug fixes that are available in the latest versions of eCos.

Nevertheless, the eCos 1.3.1 distribution for Linux is still available to download as an archive file in RPM, bzip2 (.tar.bz2) and gzip (.tar.gz) formats. Even when using the CVS repository, it is better to have installed the v1.3.1 release first in order to set up other infrastructure. Click on one of the following links to download: It is preferable to use one of the eCos mirror sites closer to you to reduce download time, or if the FTP server is temporarily overloaded.

Red Hat recommend that developers who wish to add new ports or make changes to eCos itself should access the very latest eCos repository using our anonymous CVS server. Many fundamental changes have occurred since the 1.3.1 release.

Installing the eCos RPM

To install the RPM format eCos distribution, you should first ensure that you have the RPM tool. This tool is supplied by default on all Red Hat Linux distributions. The RPM must be installed by the root user, so you may need to ask your systems administrator to install it for you. To install it simply run the following command as root:

    rpm -i ecos-1.3.1-1.i386.rpm

On completion, the eCos repository will be found in the directory /opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1.

Users without root access may still be able to extract the files from the RPM by using the following command:

    rpm2cpio ecos-1.3.1-1.i386.rpm | cpio -i -d

In this case, the files will be extracted into the directory opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1 relative to the current directory.

Under Debian Linux, the alien tool may be used to convert the RPM to a Debian .deb package.

Installing eCos from a tarball

eCos can be extracted from a tarball using the following commands:

    mkdir -p /opt/ecos
    cd /opt/ecos
    bunzip2 < ecos-1.3.1.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -     (for the bzip2 archive)
    gunzip < ecos-1.3.1.tar.gz | tar xvf -       (for the gzip archive)

On completion, the eCos repository may be found in the directory /opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1.

Downloading and installing the development tools

In order to build the eCos sources, you will require a cross-compiler and related development tools. Instructions for downloading and building the tools vary depending on the architecture to be supported. Click on the required toolset for detailed instructions: Users may optionally build eCos for the i386 PC and synthetic Linux targets using GCC version 2.95.2 or later and LD version 2.9.5 or later. The commands gcc -v and ld -v may be used to determine the version numbers of the currently installed tools. The hardware setup chapter in the Getting Started with eCos guide provides further information.

Setting up the eCos environment

Having installed eCos and the development tools, the environment must be setup prior to use.

  1. Indicate the location of the eCos repository to the eCos host tools. For sh, ksh and bash users:

        ECOS_REPOSITORY=/opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1/packages
        export ECOS_REPOSITORY

    For csh and tcsh users:

        setenv ECOS_REPOSITORY /opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1/packages

  2. Add the location of the eCos host tools and the build tools to the PATH. For sh, ksh and bash users:

        PATH=/opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1/tools/bin:$PATH
        PATH=/tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin:$PATH
        export PATH

    For csh and tcsh users:

        set path = ( /opt/ecos/ecos-1.3.1/tools/bin $path )
        set path = ( /tools/H-i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin $path )