The complete tutorial for Stellaris LaunchPad development with GNU/Linux (III)

We set-up the toolchain and built StellarisWare libraries and lm4flash tool. We are also able to debug programs using gdb + openocd. But command line building and debugging projects isn't fun, is it? No problem. In this chapter we will create an Eclipse project, and will be able to build the sources, flash them and debug with a few mouse clicks.

Installing Eclipse

You have to install Eclipse + CDT (C/C++ Development Tooling). If you are using Ubuntu (or any other Debian based distro), use this command:

sudo apt-get install eclipse-cdt

If like me, you are using Arch Linux, try this one:

sudo pacman -Sy eclipse-cdt

And that's all for the installation. This tutorial has been written using Eclipse version 4.2.1. If you are using other revision, there might be some differences, but you should be able to configure everything anyway. When watching screenshots, if the text is not legible, click the image to watch it full size.

Let's create a new project with the files from the template we built in the previous chapter.

Creating the project

1. Launch Eclipse. You'll be asked to select a directory for the workspace. Select src/stellaris/projects directory, under your home (/home/jalon in my PC):

2. Create a new project. Click File/New/Project...:

3. Select C Project (under C/C++) and click Next >:

4. In the Project name text box, write "template". In the Project type tree, select Executable/Empty Project. Then select Cross GCC Toolchain and click Next >:

5. Now click Advanced Settings:

6. Select C/C++ Build/Settings in the tree. In the Configuration combo box, select [ All configurations ]. Make sure you keep [ All configurations ] selected for all the following steps, until number 14. In the Tool Settings tab, in the Cross Settings section write "arm-none-eabi-" into the Prefix text box:

7. Click Symbols under Cross GCC Compiler. Add the following symbols: PART_LM4F120H5QR, ARM_MATH_CM4, TARGET_IS_BLIZZARD_RA1:

8. Jump to the Includes section and add the path to StellarisWare libraries. It should be in src/stellaris/stellarisware directory, under your home:

9. In the Miscellaneous section, in the Other flags: text box, you should see "-c -fmessage-length=0". To these two flags, add these all: "-mthumb -mcpu=cortex-m4 -mfpu=fpv4-sp-d16 -mfloat-abi=softfp -ffunction-sections -fdata-sections".

10. It's time to add StellarisWare driver library. Go to the Cross GCC Linker / Libraries section, add "driver-cm4f" to the Libraries (-l) list, and "src/stellaris/stellarisware/driverlib/gcc-cm4f" prefixed by your home to the Library search path (-L) list:

11. In the Miscellaneous section add the following Linker flags: "-Wl,--static,--gc-sections,-T../LM4F.ld -mthumb -mcpu=cortex-m4":

12. Go to the Build Steps tab, and in the Command text box inside the Post-build steps frame, type "arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary ${ProjName}.elf ${ProjName}.bin". Then in the Description: text box below, type "Generate binary file from elf file":

13. Switch to the Build Artifact tab and add ".elf" to the "${ProjName}" text inside the Artifact name: text box. The resulting string should be "${ProjName}.elf". When finished, click OK:

14. That was a long configuration, but when you click Finish, the project will be ready. You might need to advance to the next step before the Finish button becomes enabled. If that's the case, click the Next > button to advance to the next step, enter "arm-none-eabi-" in the Cross compiler prefix text box, and finally click Finish. If Eclipse asks you if it should open the C/C++ perspective, say yes. Also, if it's still opened, close the Welcome tab.

15. You should see the Eclipse layout for an empty project. We will not use the Java perspective, so right click it and then click Close:

16. It's time to start adding files to the project. We will use the template project by Scompo. We downloaded it in the previous chapter. Let's copy the source files. Go to the terminal and type:

cd ~/src/stellaris/stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc
cp LM4F.ld LM4F_startup.c main.c ../projects/template

17. Files are automatically added to the project once you put them in the project folder. If you don't see the files in the project explorer, just right click the template project and then click Refresh. If the project tree is collapsed, also make sure to expand it.

18. The source files should apper in the project tree. Everything is set to start using Eclipse for coding. I'll not explain how to use Eclipse, I'll only say you can open a file by double clicking it in the project explorer, and you can build the project (and select the configuration to build) using the hammer button. Try it, the project should be built without a problem. If something goes wrong, right click the project name in the Project Explorer, then click Properties, and repeat configuration steps from 6 to 14.

Flashing programs

You have built a program using Eclipse and you want to test it, but you refuse to flash it using a boring terminal. Today it's your lucky day, I have the solution to your problem. You can configure Eclipse to launch lm4flash and flash your program.

1. Click Run/External Tools/External Tools Configurations...:

2. Right click Program, then click New:

3. Change Name for example to "Release flash", Location to the place where lm4flash is (we installed it to sat/bin/lm4flash under your home), Working Directory to "${workspace_loc:/template/Release}" (Release directory of your project) and Arguments to "template.bin" (the binary file we want to flash):

4. Switch to Common tab and enable External Tools in the Display in favorites menu frame. Then click Apply and finally click Close:

5. And that's all. To flash the binary generated in the Release configuration, just pop the External Tools menu and click Release flash:

Each time you flash a program, in the Eclipse Console tab should appear a message similar to "Found ICDI device with serial: XXXXXXXX. It confirms lm4flash was called, found the MCU and flashed the program. I don't know why, but it looks like the first time I try to flash a program, this message doesn't appear, and lm4flash appears to be blocked. If this happens to you, go to the Eclipse Console tab and terminate lm4flash (click the button with the red rectangle). Try flashing again and from now on, it should work.

Debugging

The main reason I have, to embrace Eclipse or other similar IDEs (like for example Code::Blocks), its because of it's wonderful integrated debugger. If you don't like command line debugging with gdb, you'll love Eclipse once you set up the debugger. Let's get to it.

1. First we have to add another External Tool, to launch openocd. Repeat steps 1 and 2 in the previous subchapter (Flashing programs), to add a new program.
2. Change Name to "openocd", Location to your home directory plus "src/stellaris/openocd-bin/openocd", Working Directory to your home directory plus "src/stellaris/openocd-bin" and Arguments to "--file LM4F120XL.cfg". Then click Apply and finally click Close:

3. Now we have to configure gdb. Click Run/Debug Configurations...:

4. Right click GDB Hardware Debugging, then click New. James Kemp pointed me out some Eclipse installations lack GDB Hardware Debugging options. If that's the case in your setup, you'll have first to install the GDB Hardware Debugging by using the Help / Install New Software dialog.

5. Change Name to "gdb", C/C++ Application to "Debug/template.elf" and Project to "template":

6. Switch to the Debugger tab. Then change GDB Command to "arm-none-eabi-gdb", and uncheck Use remote target:

7. Now go to the Startup tab. Uncheck Reset and Delay (seconds) and Halt checkmarks. In the Initialization Commands text box enter two lines: "target extended-remote :3333" and "monitor reset halt". In the Run Commands text box enter "monitor reset init". Then click Apply and finally click Close. WARNING: If you had the problem with gdb/openocd explained in the troubleshooting section in the previous chapter, you also will have to copy to the project directory the "target.xml" file you used, and add the line "set tdesc filename target.xml" to the Initialization Commands. This added line must be the first one in the list.

8. We could start debugging right now. To do this, we could launch using Eclipse menus, first openocd and then gdb. But we can make Eclipse launch both programs with a single menu action. Click Run/Debug Configurations...:

9. Right click Launch Group, then click New:

10. Change Name to "Debug", then click Add... button:

11. Change Launch Mode to "run", select "openocd" and click OK:

12. Click Add again. The same window will pop up. Now select "gdb" and click OK.

13. Go to the Common tab. Add a checkmark to Debug in the Display in favorites menu frame. Then click Apply and Close:

14. It took us some time, but I swear everything is configured now. No more configuration steps from now on. To start a debug session, click the Debug template menu, and then click Debug. If Eclipse asks you if you want to switch to the Debug Perspective, say yes. I have found that if I use lm4flash tool before debugging, openocd doesn't start properly until I unplug the LaunchPad from the USB port and plug it again, so if the debug session doesn't start, try unplugging and plugging the LaunchPad again.

Here you can see the debug layout. In the Debug window you can see the launched applications. There you can see openocd and gdb, and also the Debug launch group. Over the Debug window, you can find the buttons for controlling the program execution (continue, stop, step into, step over, etc.). You can set breakpoints, watch variables, registers and memory, you have a disassembler, etc. Really cool, isn't it?

To stop the debug session, I'd recommend to click the Debug launch group, then the Terminate button (the one with the red square), and then the Remove all Terminated Launches button (the one with the two grey crosses, to the upper right of the Debug window). If you want to continue coding, it's also recommended to switch back to the C/C++ perspective.

That's all! It was a looooooooooooong entry! I hope you enjoy coding with Eclipse as much as I do. For the next chapter, I'll show you how to build the CMSIS DSPLib, a powerful library for signal processing and other CPU intensive maths algorithms.

Happy hacking and stay tuned!

The complete tutorial for Stellaris Launchpad development with GNU/Linux (II)

Did you follow my previous tutorial? We set up the toolchain, built StellarisWare libraries, compiled lm4flash tool and flashed an example to the Stellaris LaunchPad. So... you are brave and even started writing your own code. That's great news! Unfortunately programs have a nasty tendency to fail, and debugging using LEDs and traces is not convenient for big projects. Don't worry, in this chapter we will learn how to set up a full debugger (gdb + openocd). This way you will be able to debug the code setting up breakpoints and watching variable values. This tutorial is based on this tutorial by Mauro Scomparin (scompo). You can follow it instead of this one, I just wanted to write it again to have all the tutorials in one place, and to fit the directory structure I'm using. But there are almost no differences between both tutorials.

Building OpenOCD

At the time of writing this tutorial, there is not official support in OpenOCD for the ICDI protocol used in the Stellaris LaunchPad integrated debugger. But don't worry, Spencer Oliver has patched it to add support. When this patch is pushed into the main OpenOCD branch, it will not be necessary to follow this tutorial. Just install it using the repository of your distro, and it's done. But now we will have to do it the long way:

1. Download the sources

cd ~/src/stellaris
git clone git://openocd.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openocd/openocd

2. Install the required dependencies

sudo apt-get install libtool libusb-dev

3. Apply Spencer Oliver patches:

cd openocd
git pull http://openocd.zylin.com/openocd refs/changes/22/922/14

4. And build it:

./bootstrap
./configure --enable-maintainer-mode  --enable-ti-icdi
make

5. To install it I have also followed scompo's suggestion about not executing make install but copying the required files manually:

cd ~/src/stellaris
mkdir openocd-bin
cp -r openocd/tcl/* openocd-bin
cp openocd/src/openocd openocd-bin

gdb is already built. We built it in the previous chapter, when we built the toolchain. So we can start using it, but before, we must build something to debug.

Avoiding Stellarisware obscure licenses

As I wrote in previous chapter, there's no problem with StellarisWare library license, but the examples that come bundled with it use a more obscure license terms, including the startup code, the linker scripts and the makefiles. So to avoid problems with this license, you should not use these files. Again, scompo comes to rescue us. He wrote a template project, including a makefile, startup code and a linker script you can use in your own projects. You just have to preserve the header in the files (with the copyright notice) and everything should be fine. Let's build this template project:

1. Download the project

cd ~/src/stellaris
git clone https://github.com/scompo/stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc.git
cd stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc

2. Edit the makefile to set the path to the StellarisWare library. Change this line:

STELLARISWARE_PATH=~/stellaris/stellaris/

to this:

STELLARISWARE_PATH=~/src/stellaris/stellarisware/

3. And build:

make

At last, it's time to start debugging!

Using the debugger

First of all, you have to create a config file for openocd. Rickta59, a Stellarisiti forum user, wrote one working perfect. Then you'll only have to start both openocd and gdb.

1. Download the config file:

cd ~/src/stellaris/openocd-bin
wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=qXxeYsVx -O LM4F120XL.cfg

2. With the Stellaris LaunchPad debug port connected to the PC, and the power select switch in the "debug" position, run openocd. Before starting it, make sure you created the udev rule for the Stellaris LaunchPad as written in the previous chapter, to avoid having to run openocd with root privileges:

./openocd --file LM4F120XL.cfg

3. openocd should be running without problems. If it fails, try running it as superuser (with the sudo prefix). If it works with sudo, maybe you have not properly created the udev rule! If it's working, now you'll only have to start gdb. Open another terminal and type:

cd ~/src/stellaris/stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc
arm-none-eabi-gdb main.axf

4. gdb should have started, and you should be greeted by the (gdb) prompt. At this prompt you should start writing some commands. The first one will connect gdb to openocd, and the following ones will load the program and initialize the debug process:

target extended-remote :3333
monitor reset halt
load
monitor reset init

5. You can enable some breakpoints and watch the contents of the count variable. Then continue execution with the 'c' command:

b main.c:51
b Timer1A_ISR
display count
c

6. The execution will hit a breakpoint, and the line at which the code is stopped will be printed, along with the value of the count variable. You can type 'c' command several times to continue execution and watch the contents of the count variable each time the program stops at a breakpoint. When you finish debugging, you can exit gdb with the 'q' command. To exit openocd, just switch to it and hit [CTRL] + C.

And that's all. Now you can build and debug anything you want for your StellarisLaunchpad using GNU/Linux. What did you say? You don't like command-line debugging? Me neither! So stay tuned, because in the next chapter, you'll learn how to set-up an Eclipse project, using its full code building and debugging capabilities!

Happy hacking and stay tuned!

Troubleshooting

You followed the steps without changing a single thing, and got to step 4 of the "Using the debugger" sub-chapter. But then something went wrong and when trying to connect to openocd with the target command, you received this cryptic error message:

Remote 'g' packet reply is too long:
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000010000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000

It looks like there's a known bug in openocd causing this issue with some versions of gdb. Until this bug gets fixed, you can workaround it:

1. Download this target description file to the directory where the project you want to debug is (in this case, to ~/src/stellaris/stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc).

cd ~/src/stellaris/stellaris-launchpad-template-gcc
wget http://pastebin.com/download.php?i=0Lu3Bu0R -O target.xml

2. Start gdb as usual, but before issuing any other command, write this one at the gdb prompt:

set tdesc filename target.xml

3. Continue writing commands as usual, hopefully the error should be gone, and everything should work perfect now!

The complete tutorial for Stellaris LaunchPad development with GNU/Linux (I)

So you bought the Stellaris LaunchPad, this powerful and cheap development board. Maybe you are even one of the lucky ones that bought it for only $4.99. You received it, grabbed a breadboard, some wires, resistors, capacitors and ICs, mixed all together and are ready to start writing software, but... what options do you have for developing software for this platform? Let's see what TI has to offer on the Stellaris LaunchPad web page:

• Code Composer Studio (CCS) is the IDE from Texas Instruments. It's Eclipse based and you can use it with the Stellaris Launchpad without any limit on the code size.
• Keil RealView MDK-ARM: This is a popular IDE supporting several chip architectures, including the ARM Cortex M4 in your Stellaris LaunchPad. You can freely download an evaluation version, which is 32 kiB code size limited.
• IAR Embedded Workbench. Another popular IDE. It has also an evaluation version, with a 32 kiB code size limit.
• Sourcery Codebench. An IDE by Mentor Graphics. You can download a 30-day evaluation version.

If you want to stick to non-limited non-pay options, you can use Code Composer Studio. End of story. See you in Hack a Day when you finish your neat gadget!

Are you still reading? If that's the case, maybe you don't like/have a Windows box for developing, and all the four IDEs I have mentioned are Windows only. But don't worry, of course you can develop for this board using GNU/Linux. Don't forget GNU/Linux is the best OS for software developing ;-).

I'll write some entries detailing all the process needed to set up the toolchain, build the StellarisWare libraries, build your project, flash and debug it and set up an Eclipse project. In the end, we will have a completely FOSS IDE without any time/code size restrictions!

But enough talk, let's get our hands dirty!

Building the toolchain

In these tutorials, I'll put all the tools for Stellaris development in a directory called src/stellaris under my home. The first step is to build the toolchain containing the assembler, C compiler and libraries, linker,  etc. To build it I followed the steps posted in Recursive Labs Blog, almost unmodified.

1. Create working directory and change to it:

mkdir -p ~/src/stellaris
cd ~/src/stellaris

2. Install the compiler and dependencies required to build the toolachain. In Ubuntu (and hopefully in most Debian based distros):

apt-get install flex bison libgmp3-dev libmpfr-dev libncurses5-dev libmpc-dev \
        autoconf texinfo build-essential libftdi-dev git

3. Download the script for building the toolchain and run it. This step will take some time to complete, but when it finishes, you should have the toolchain ready to use, in the sat/ directory under your home:

git clone https://github.com/esden/summon-arm-toolchain
cd summon-arm-toolchain
./summon-arm-toolchain

Once the build is successfully completed, your toolchain will be ready for building programs for the Stellaris Launchpad. For convenience don't forget to add ~/sat/bin to your PATH variable. For example edit .profile file in your home, and add the following line at its end:

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/sat/bin

You will have to restart your session for this change to take effect.

Building StellarisWare library

The easiest way to configure the Stellaris MCU and its peripherals is to use the StellarisWare library. This library is really complete and easy to use, and has another cool advantage: it's also included in the ROM inside the LM4F120 MCU (you just have to add the ROM_ prefix to the function calls to use the ROM software). This can help saving Flash memory space.

Fortunately the library uses a BSD license, the sources are available and come with gcc friendly makefiles. Building this library is as easy as:

1. Download the library sources package. You can find it here. You'll need a my.TI account, so if you have not one, you'll have to register.
2. Unpack and build the library. Make sure you change the path to the library package, in case you don't download it to the Downloads directory of your home:

mkdir -p ~/src/stellaris/stellarisware
cd ~/src/stellaris/stellarisware
unzip ~/Downloads/SW-EK-LM4F120XL-9453.exe
make

These steps will build StellarisWare library and also the examples. StellarisWare example files are not BSD licensed. They have some obscure license terms, including the startup code files, the linker scripts and the Makefiles for building them. This can be a problem for some users, so be warned.

Building and using lm4flash

lm4flash is a tool for flashing binaries to the MCU. This step is not strictly required, because you can flash programs to the MCU using gdb + openocd, but it's easy to do, fast, and sometimes using lm4flash tool is more convenient. Just follow these steps:

1. Download lm4tools and build lm4flash:

cd ~/src/stellaris
git clone https://github.com/utzig/lm4tools.git
cd lm4tools/lm4flash
make

2. If everything went OK, you should have the lm4flash binary sitting in the current working directory. Maybe this is not the cleanest installation method, but I moved lm4flash to ~/sat/bin for it to stay in the PATH:

mv lm4flash ~/sat/bin/

3. Before flashing anything to the board, it's recommended to create a new udev rule so you can use lm4flash (and openocd later) without superuser permissions (i.e. without being root or using sudo). You will also have to add your user to the "users" group if it's not in it already. So only execute the last sentence if you need to do so, and if you do it, replace <username> with your user name:

echo 'ATTRS{idVendor}=="1cbe", ATTRS{idProduct}=="00fd", GROUP="users", MODE="0660"' | \
        sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stellaris-launchpad.rules
sudo usermod -aG users <username>

4. If the board was plugged to the USB debug port, unplug it. Make sure the PWR SELECT switch is at the DEBUG position and connect the USB debug port to a USB port in the PC. If the rule is working, you will have permission to access the /dev/ttyACM* device created when you plug the board. Now you can test everything you have done until now, by flashing one of the examples, like this:

cd ~/src/stellaris/stellarisware/boards/ek-lm4f120xl/blinky/gcc/
lm4flash blinky.bin

The program should be successfully flashed to the MCU, and you should see a green LED blinking in the board. If that's the case, congratulations, your toolchain is working perfect!

In the next chapter we will learn how to set-up OpenOcd and GDB for debugging programs. We will also see how to avoid problems with the clunky license that comes with the examples in the StellarisWare package.

Happy hacking, and stay tuned!