3. Hosts¶

The known supported hosts are listed in the following sections. If a host or a new version of a host is known to work and it not listed please lets us know.

3.1. Linux¶

A number of different Linux distrubutions are known to work. The following have been tested and report as working.

3.1.1. ArchLinux¶

The following packages are required on a fresh Archlinux 64bit installation:

# pacman -S base-devel gdb xz unzip ncurses git zlib

Archlinux, by default installs texinfo-5 which is incompatible for building GCC 4.7 tree. You will have to obtain texinfo-legacy from AUR and provide a manual override:

# pacman -R texinfo
$ yaourt -S texinfo-legacy
# ln -s /usr/bin/makeinfo-4.13a /usr/bin/makeinfo

3.1.2. CentOS¶

The following packages are required on a minimal CentOS 6.3 64bit installation:

# yum install autoconf automake binutils gcc gcc-c++ gdb make patch \
bison flex xz unzip ncurses-devel texinfo zlib-devel python-devel git

The minimal CentOS distribution is a specific DVD that installs a minimal system. If you use a full system some of these packages may have been installed.

3.1.3. Fedora¶

The RTEMS Source Builder has been tested on Fedora 19 64bit with the following packages:

# yum install ncurses-devel python-devel git bison gcc cvs gcc-c++ \
     flex texinfo patch perl-Text-ParseWords zlib-devel

3.1.4. Raspbian¶

The is the Debian distribution for the Raspberry Pi. The following packages are required:

$ sudo apt-get install autoconf automake bison flex binutils gcc g++ gdb \
texinfo unzip ncurses-dev python-dev git

It is recommended you get Model B of the Pi with 512M of memory and to mount a remote disk over the network. The tools can be built on the network disk with a prefix under your home directory as recommended and end up on the SD card.

3.1.5. Ubuntu¶

The latest version is Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS 64bit. This section also includes Xubuntu. A minimal installation was used and the following packages installed:

$ sudo apt-get build-dep binutils gcc g++ gdb unzip git
$ sudo apt-get install python2.7-dev

3.1.6. Linux Mint¶

zlib package is required on Linux Mint. It has a different name (other than the usual zlib-dev):

# sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

3.1.7. openSUSE¶

This has been reported to work but no instructions were provided. This is an opportunity to contribute. Please submit any guidance you can provide.

3.2. FreeBSD¶

The RTEMS Source Builder has been tested on FreeBSD 9.1, 10.3 and 11 64bit version. You need to install some ports. They are:

# cd /usr/ports
# portinstall --batch lang/python27

If you wish to build Windows (mingw32) tools please install the following ports:

# cd /usr/ports
# portinstall --batch devel/mingw32-binutils devel/mingw32-gcc
# portinstall --batch devel/mingw32-zlib devel/mingw32-pthreads

The +zlip+ and +pthreads+ ports for MinGW32 are used for builiding a Windows QEMU.

If you are on FreeBSD 10.0 and you have pkgng installed you can use ‘pkg install’ rather than ‘portinstall’.

3.3. NetBSD¶

The RTEMS Source Builder has been tested on NetBSD 6.1 i386. Packages to add are:

# pkg_add ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/6.1/devel/gmake-3.82nb7.tgz
# pkg_add ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/6.1/devel/bison-2.7.1.tgz
# pkg_add ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/6.1/archivers/xz-5.0.4.tgz

3.4. MacOS¶

The RTEMS Source Builder has been tested on Mountain Lion. You will need to install the Xcode app using the App Store tool, run Xcode and install the Developers Tools package within Xcode.

3.4.1. Mavericks¶

The RSB works on Mavericks and the GNU tools can be built for RTEMS using the Mavericks clang LLVM tool chain. You will need to build and install a couple of packages to make the RSB pass the sb-check. These are CVS and XZ. You can get these tools from a packaging tool for MacOS such as MacPorts or HomeBrew.

I do not use 3rd party packaging on MacOS and prefer to build the packages from source using a prefix of /usr/local. There are good 3rd party packages around however they sometimes bring in extra dependence and that complicates my build environment and I want to know the minimal requirements when building tools. The following are required:

The XZ package’s home page is http://tukaani.org/xz/ and I use version 5.0.5. XZ builds and installs cleanly.

3.4.2. Serria¶

The RSB works on Serria with the latest Xcode.

3.5. Windows¶

Windows tool sets are supported. The tools are native Windows executable which means they do not need an emulation layer to run once built. The tools understand and use standard Windows paths and integrate easily into Windows IDE environments because they understand and use standard Windows paths. Native Windows tools have proven over time to be stable and reliable with good performance. If you are a Windows user or you are required to use Windows you can still develop RTEMS application as easily as a Unix operating system. Some debugging experiences may vary and if this is an issue please raised the topic on the RTEMS Users mailing list.

Building the tools or some other packages may require a Unix or POSIX type shell. There are a few options, Cygwin and MSYS2. I recommend MSYS2.

3.5.1. MSYS2¶

This is a new version of the MinGW project’s original MSYS. MSYS2 is based around the Arch Linux pacman packager. MSYS and MSYS2 are a specific fork of the Cygwin project with some fundamental changes in the handling of paths and mounts that allow easy interaction between the emulated POSIX environment and the native Windows environment.

Install MSYS2 using the installer you can download from https://msys2.github.io/. Follow the instructions on the install page and make sure you remove any global path entries to any other Cygwin, MinGW, MSYS or packages that may uses a Cygwin DLL, for example some ports of Git.

To build the tools you need install the following packages using pacman:

$ pacman -S git cvs bison make texinfo patch unzip diffutils tar \
         mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw64/mingw-w64-x86_64-binutils

To build make sure you add ‘–without-python –jobs=none’ to the standard RSB command line. MSYS2 has a temp file name issue and so the GNU AR steps on itself when running in parallel on SMP hardware which means we have to set the jobs option to none.

Install a suitable version of Python from http://www.python.org/ and add it to the start of your path. The MSYS2 python does not work with waf.

3.5.2. Cygwin¶

Building on Windows is a little more complicated because the Cygwin shell is used rather than the MSYS2 shell. The MSYS2 shell is simpler because the detected host triple is MinGW so the build is a standard cross-compiler build. A Canadian cross-build using Cygwin is supported if you would like native tools or you can use a Cygwin built set of tools.

Install a recent Cygwin version using the Cygwin setup tool. Select and install the groups and packages listed:

Cygwin Packages¶
Group	Package
Archive	bsdtar
Archive	unzip
Archive	xz
Devel	autoconf
Devel	autoconf2.1
Devel	autoconf2.5
Devel	automake
Devel	binutils
Devel	bison
Devel	flex
Devel	gcc4-core
Devel	gcc4-g++
Devel	git
Devel	make
Devel	mingw64-x86_64-binutils
Devel	mingw64-x86_64-gcc-core
Devel	mingw64-x86_64-g++
Devel	mingw64-x86_64-runtime
Devel	mingw64-x86_64-zlib
Devel	patch
Devel	zlib-devel
MinGW	mingw-zlib-devel
Python	python

The setup tool will add a number of dependent package and it is ok to accept them.

Disabling Windows Defender improves performance if you have another up to date virus detection tool installed and enabled. The excellent Process Hacker 2 tool can monitor the performance and the Windows Defender service contributed a high load. In this case a 3rd party virus tool was installed so the Windows Defender service was not needed.

To build a MinGW tool chain a Canadian cross-compile (Cxc) is required on Cygwin because the host is Cygwin therefore a traditional cross-compile will result in Cygiwn binaries. With a Canadian cross-compile a Cygwin cross-compiler is built as well as the MinGW RTEMS cross-compiler. The Cygwin cross-compiler is required to build the C runtime for the RTEMS target because we are building under Cygiwn. The build output for an RTEMS 4.10 ARM tool set is:

chris@cygthing ~/development/rtems/src/rtems-source-builder/rtems
$ ../source-builder/sb-set-builder --log=l-arm.txt --prefix=$HOME/development/rtems/4.10 4.10/rtems-arm
RTEMS Source Builder - Set Builder, v0.2
Build Set: 4.10/rtems-arm
config: expat-2.1.0-1.cfg
package: expat-2.1.0-x86_64-w64-mingw32-1
building: expat-2.1.0-x86_64-w64-mingw32-1
reporting: expat-2.1.0-1.cfg -> expat-2.1.0-x86_64-w64-mingw32-1.html
config: tools/rtems-binutils-2.20.1-1.cfg
package: arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1   <1>
building: arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1
package: (Cxc) arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1   <2>
building: (Cxc) arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1
reporting: tools/rtems-binutils-2.20.1-1.cfg ->
arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1.html
config: tools/rtems-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1.cfg
package: arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1
building: arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1
package: (Cxc) arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1
building: (Cxc) arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1
reporting: tools/rtems-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1.cfg ->
arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1.html
config: tools/rtems-gdb-7.3.1-1.cfg
package: arm-rtems4.10-gdb-7.3.1-1
building: arm-rtems4.10-gdb-7.3.1-1
reporting: tools/rtems-gdb-7.3.1-1.cfg -> arm-rtems4.10-gdb-7.3.1-1.html
config: tools/rtems-kernel-4.10.2.cfg
package: arm-rtems4.10-kernel-4.10.2-1
building: arm-rtems4.10-kernel-4.10.2-1
reporting: tools/rtems-kernel-4.10.2.cfg -> arm-rtems4.10-kernel-4.10.2-1.html
installing: expat-2.1.0-x86_64-w64-mingw32-1 -> /cygdrive/c/Users/chris/development/rtems/4.10
installing: arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1 -> /cygdrive/c/Users/chris/development/rtems/4.10 <3>
installing: arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1 -> /cygdrive/c/Users/chris/development/rtems/4.10
installing: arm-rtems4.10-gdb-7.3.1-1 -> /cygdrive/c/Users/chris/development/rtems/4.10
installing: arm-rtems4.10-kernel-4.10.2-1 -> /cygdrive/c/Users/chris/development/rtems/4.10
cleaning: expat-2.1.0-x86_64-w64-mingw32-1
cleaning: arm-rtems4.10-binutils-2.20.1-1
cleaning: arm-rtems4.10-gcc-4.4.7-newlib-1.18.0-1
cleaning: arm-rtems4.10-gdb-7.3.1-1
cleaning: arm-rtems4.10-kernel-4.10.2-1
Build Set: Time 10:09:42.810547   <4>

Items:

The Cygwin version of the ARM cross-binutils.
The +(Cxc)+ indicates this is the MinGW build of the package.
Only the MinGW version is installed.
Cygwin is slow so please be patient. This time was on an AMD Athlon 64bit Dual Core 6000+ running at 3GHz with 4G RAM running Windows 7 64bit.

Warning

Cygwin documents the ‘Big List Of Dodgy Apps’ or ‘BLODA’. The link is http://cygwin.com/faq/faq.html#faq.using.bloda and it is worth a look. You will see a large number of common pieces of software found on Windows systems that can cause problems. My testing has been performed with NOD32 running and I have seen some failures. The list is for all of Cygwin so I am not sure which of the listed programs effect the RTEMS Source Biulder. The following FAQ item talks about fork failures and presents some technical reasons they cannot be avoided in all cases. Cygwin and it’s fork MSYS are fantastic pieces of software in a difficult environment. I have found building a single tool tends to work, building all at once is harder.