In this article we will about how to build GCC AVR Toolchain for ARM architecture. The built GCC can be used to compile application into ARM’s machine codes. The toolchain then reside on /usr/local path.
For this article, I use:
- Slackware64 14.0
- GCC 4.9.0
- GDB 7.7
- Binutils 2.24
- AVR-libc 1.8
- GMP 6.0.0
- MPFR 3.1.2
- MPC 1.0.2
Preparation
We will need some disk space (~2GB should be enough). We also need root access to install it on “system-wide”.
Slackware64 14.0 is optional. You can use any linux distribution you like.
We will create a working directory. We will refer it as $AVRGCC, so $AVRGCC/src should really be something like ~/AVRGCC/src (the ~ means your home directory). So go ahead and create following directory structure:
# set aliases export AVRGCC=~/AVRGCC export TARGET=avr export PREFIX=/usr/local export BINUTILS_BUILD=${AVRGCC}/build/binutils-build export GCC_BUILD=${AVRGCC}/build/gcc-build export GDB_BUILD=${AVRGCC}/build/gdb-build export BINUTILS_SRC=${AVRGCC}/src/binutils-2.24 export GCC_SRC=${AVRGCC}/src/gcc-4.9.0 export GDB_SRC=${AVRGCC}/src/gdb-7.7 export AVRLIBC_SRC=${AVRGCC}/src/avr-libc-1.8.0 # make base dir, original archives dir (orig), source code dir (src), # and working / building dir (build) mkdir ${AVRGCC}{,/{orig,src,build}} # Make build directory for each component mkdir ${AVRGCC}/build/{binutils,gcc,gdb}-build Acquiring the Materials
Download latest packages of GCC, GDB, binutils, and Newlib.You can download it using wget or alternatively download via browser and move it to $ARMGCC/orig. The version we will use is GCC 4.9.0, GDB 7.7, binutils 2.24, and newlib 2.1.0.
cd ${AVRGCC}/orig wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gcc/gcc-4.9.0/gcc-4.9.0.tar.bz2 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gdb/gdb-7.7.tar.bz2 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/binutils-2.24.tar.bz2 wget ftp://ftp.twaren.net/Unix/NonGNU//avr-libc/avr-libc-1.8.0.tar.bz2 wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gmp/gmp-6.0.0a.tar.xz wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/mpc/mpc-1.0.2.tar.gz wget ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/mpfr/mpfr-3.1.2.tar.gz Then, extract them to src directory.
cd ${AVRGCC}/src tar -jxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/gcc-4.9.0.tar.bz2 tar -jxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/gdb-7.7.tar.bz2 tar -jxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/binutils-2.24.tar.bz2 tar -jxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/avr-libc-1.8.0.tar.bz2 Next we need to download some prerequisites, especially GMP (GNU Multiple Precision), MPC (Multiple-Precision Complex), and MPFR (Multiple-Precision Floating Point Reliably) which is used for computation. The prerequisites can be downloaded by invoking following command:
The MPFR, GMP, and MPC is not the latest version, but at least we can build GCC. Supposing your working directory at /home/xathrya/AVRGCC, to obtain MPDR, GMP, and MPC invoke following command:
cd ${GCC_SRC} ./contrib/download_prerequisites However, the version of GMP, MPC, MPFR, PPL, CLOOG, and ISL is not the latest version. We can switch to the latest version by download the latest version and create symbolic link to it.
cd ${GCC_SRC} rm {gmp,mpc,mpfr} tar -Jxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/gmp-6.0.0a.tar.xz tar -zxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/mpc-1.0.2.tar.gz tar -zxf ${AVRGCC}/orig/mpfr-3.1.2.tar.gz ln -s gmp-6.0.0 gmp ln -s mpc-1.0.2 mpc ln -s mpfr-3.1.2 mpfr Building the Toolchains
Building stage is pretty simple. Honestly speaking, the tricky part is about how GCC and built concept and ordering them in correct order.
Binutils
First, built binutils. This will provide lots of useful tools in building ARM libraries and binaries (like objdump, ld, ranlib, etc). Invoke following commands:
cd ${BINUTILS_BUILD} ${BINUTILS_SRC}/configure --target=${TARGET} --prefix=${PREFIX} \ --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-shared make configure-host make -j4 all make install You will notice a few configure options that are really critical for getting things to work properly.
- –target=avr Says we want a compiler to generate binaries for the avr platform.
- –enable-interwork This allows for assembling Thumb and ARM code mixed into the same binaries (for those chips that support that)
- –enable-multilib Multilib allows the use of libraries that are compiled multiple times for different targets/build types
- –enable-shared – enable the creation of the shared libraries.
GCC
Next we will build the GCC. But please note that we are only intereset on C and C++ so we will ignore other language. To built GCC, do this:
cd ${GCC_BUILD} ${GCC_SRC}/configure --target=${TARGET} --prefix=${PREFIX} --enable-interwork \ --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c,c++" --with-dwarf2 --disable-libssp \ --enable-c99 --enable-long-long --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-shared make -j4 all-gcc make -j4 all-target-libgcc make install-gcc install-target-libgccNow, the important points are:
- –enable-languages=”c,c++” - means build C and C++ only.
- –with-newlib – use Newlib instead of the standard C libraries.
- –with-headers – this adds a header inlude path during build time and will allow the build to find the newlib header files
- –enable-__cxa_atexit – allows use of __cxa_atexit, rather than atexit, to register C++ destructors for local statics and global objects and is essential for fully standards-compliant handling of destructors. It also affects the C++ ABI and therefore results in C++ shared libraries and C++ programs that are interoperable with other Linux distributions.
- –enable-c99 – enable C99 support for C programs.
- –enable-long-long – enables long long support in the compiler.
avr-libc
Now build our avr-libc
cd ${AVRLIBC_SRC} ./configure --host=avr --build=`./config.guess` --prefix=${PREFIX} make make install GDB
Optionally you can build GDB. To do so, invoke following:
cd ${GDB_BUILD} ${GDB_SRC}/configure --target=${TARGET} --prefix=${PREFIX} \ --enable-interwork --enable-multilib make -j4 all make installAnd that’s it. You should have them now.
Testing
The toolchain can be tested with the minimal code here:
int main() { return 0; } 
