manual:chapter1:buildfromsource

Linux

The following instructions are for Ubuntu, package names might change slightly on other distros.

Packages to install (either use synaptic package manager, or apt):

git
libelf-dev
libudev-dev

If using other distros, verify that these other packages are installed:

gcc
g++
libc6-dev

and for Qt, some 3D related headers (even though not used by newRPL) are needed, therefore these packages need to be installed as well:

libgl-dev

Time to install the Qt framework.

  1. Go to http://qt-project.org and download the open source version. It will download a file named qt-unified-…;
  2. change the permissions to allow executing it as a program and run it to install Qt;
  3. when it's time to select components, it's very important to open the lists and select a library version and target. The installer will not select a library version by default, and failing to select one will leave you without a proper library and unable to build newRPL. Select the latest Qt version (5.10.0 at the time of this writing), the only component needed is the one labeled Desktop gcc 64-bits. Make sure at least that component is checked.

freeBSD

In order to use Qt Creator, a graphical desktop needs to be installed (that's outside the scope of this article).

Packages to install (either using pkg or OctoPkg):

git
qt5
qtcreator

And that's all that's required.

For developers wishing to cooperate with the project, another package is needed:

gdb

Once the packages are installed,

  1. start Qt Creator, and navigate the menus and dialogs through Tools, Options…, Build&Run, Kits and select the Desktop (default) configuration;
  2. verify that everything is populated, and change the Debugger to System GDB at /usr/local/bin/gdb which is the version of gdb that was just installed. This is needed only to debug the code, not needed if the objective is simply to have a running version of newRPL Desktop.

Linux

The following instructions are for Ubuntu, package names might change slightly on other distros.

Packages to install (either use synaptic package manager, or apt):

gcc-arm-none-eabi

Other packages like

binutils-arm-none-eabi

will be installed automatically, on other distros this might be different and it needs to be installed separately.

freeBSD

Packages to install (either use pkg or OctoPkg):

arm-none-eabi-gcc

Linux and freeBSD

While at your user's home, open a terminal and run:

git clone https://git.code.sf.net/p/newrpl/sources newrpl-sources


elf2rom

The first tool that needs building is elf2rom.

  1. Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources/tools/elf2rom;
  2. select the elf2rom.pro project file;
  3. when prompted, just click on Configure project;
  4. at the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows Debug: change it to Release;
  5. on the left toolbox, select the wrench Projects to access the build settings;
  6. make sure Release is the selected configuration, then Add Build Step / Make, and in the Make arguments: box type install;
  7. now from the top menu, Build, Run QMake, then Rebuild All;
  8. from the bottom of the screen, check the Compile Output pane to see if everything went well. Quite often, the last step make install says there's nothing new to install when there's actually a newly built executable. Another round of Run QMake and Rebuild All usually shows in the output pane that the file is being copied to newrpl/tools-bin which is the expected result.

It's done: the elf2rom tool was built and installed in the appropriate location to be used by the other projects. Select Close all projects and editors from the main menu to end the session.

bmp2font

  1. Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources/tools/fonts/bmp2font;
  2. select the bmp2font.pro project file;
  3. when prompted, just click on Configure project;
  4. at the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows Debug: change it to Release;
  5. on the left toolbox, select the wrench Projects to access the build settings;
  6. make sure Release is the selected configuration, then Add Build Step / Make, and in the Make arguments: box type install;
  7. now from the top menu, Build, Run QMake, then Rebuild All;
  8. from the bottom of the screen, check the Compile Output pane to see if everything went well. Quite often, the last step make install says there's nothing new to install when there's actually a newly built executable. Another round of Run QMake and Rebuild All usually shows in the output pane that the file is being copied to newrpl/tools-bin which is the expected result.

It's done: the bmp2font tool was built and installed in the appropriate location to be used by the other projects. Select Close all projects and editors from the main menu to end the session.

newRPL standalone compiler

  1. Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources;
  2. select the newrpl-comp.pro project file;
  3. when prompted, just click on Configure project;
  4. at the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows Debug: change it to Release;
  5. on the left toolbox, select the wrench Projects to access the build settings;
  6. make sure Release is the selected configuration, then Add Build Step / Make, and in the Make arguments: box type install;
  7. now from the top menu, Build, Run QMake, then Rebuild All;
  8. from the bottom of the screen, check the Compile Output pane to see if everything went well. Quite often, the last step make install says there's nothing new to install when there's actually a newly built executable. Another round of Run QMake and Rebuild All usually shows in the output pane that the file is being copied to newrpl/tools-bin which is the expected result.

It's done: the newrpl-comp tool was built and installed in the appropriate location to be used by the other projects. Select Close all projects and editors from the main menu to end the session.


  1. Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources;
  2. select the newrpl-ui.pro project file;
  3. when prompted, just click on Configure project;
  4. at the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows Debug: change it to Release;
  5. on the left toolbox, select the wrench Projects to access the build settings;
  6. make sure Release is the selected configuration, then Add Build Step / Make, and in the Make arguments: box type install;
  7. now from the top menu, Build, Run QMake, then Rebuild All;
  8. from the bottom of the screen, check the Compile Output pane to see if everything went well. Quite often, the last step make install says there's nothing new to install when there's actually a newly built executable. Another round of Run QMake and Rebuild All usually shows in the output pane that the file is being copied to newrpl-sources which is the expected result.

It's done: the newrpl-ui tool was built and installed in the appropriate location to be used by the other projects. Select Close all projects and editors from the main menu to end the session.

At the lower left area of the screen, use the upper Play button (Run without debugging) to start the application.

  1. Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources, then select the relevant project file: newrpl-fw.pro for the 50g target, newrpl-fw39.pro for the 39g+ / 39gs target, newrpl-fw40.pro for the 40gs target;
  2. when prompted, just click on Configure project;
  3. open a Terminal window and type
    arm-none-eabi-gcc -print-libgcc-file-name

    It will print the full path to a file called libgcc.a. Remember that path (without the /libgcc.a part);

  4. back to Qt Creator, from the left pane open the file newrpl-fw.pro, and scroll down to a line that reads
    GCC_LIBDIR = xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    Change that path to match exactly the path we got from the previous step;

  5. one last check: locate the line that reads
    INCLUDEPATH += firmware/include newrpl xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

    The xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx should point to suitable headers. In particular on a 64-bit system the system headers might be incompatible and cause errors. The first attempt should be to keep the defaults, and if any errors appear, to change it to /usr/include/newlib (or wherever there's a suitable 32-bit library). While newRPL will not link to or use the library in any way, some standard headers are expected to provide definitions;

  6. another possible alternative for 64-bit systems is to install the package
    libc6-dev-i386

    which in most cases should allow to keep the default directories. For Ubuntu it works with the defaults, for other systems change that to /usr/include/newlib, so the line reads

    INCLUDEPATH += firmware/include newrpl /usr/include/newlib
  7. save and close the file;
  8. now from the top menu, Build, Run QMake, then Rebuild All;
  9. from the bottom of the screen, check the Compile Output pane to see if everything went well. There might be some warnings, but there should be no hard errors. There could be many warnings, depending on your version of gcc and your system: these warnings change all the time but they are harmless.

To verify that it completed the build, the last output line should read

Binary image written to “newrplfw.bin” (for HP50g target) or
Binary image written to “newrpl39.bin” (for HP39g+ / 39gs target) or
Binary image written to “newrpl40.bin” (for HP40gs target)

If you see that line, everything went well, and your build directory (usually named build-newrpl-fw-Desktop…) will contain the firmware file, which is the ROM that needs to be flashed on the calculator.


When updates are made to the source tree

  1. open a terminal session and go inside the main source directory (usually newrpl-sources), and issue
    git pull

    This will update the source code to the lastest version;

  2. build the standalone compiler and check the compile output to make sure the new version was copied to newrpl/tools-bin, if not then repeat the steps Run QMake and Rebuild all;
  3. with the updated compiler in place, close all projects and rebuild the desktop simulator. The Run QMake step is not optional, it needs to be manually executed to make sure the build number is updated, otherwise the VERSION command will report the incorrect build number;
  4. finally, close all projects and rebuild the firmware.
  • manual/chapter1/buildfromsource.txt
  • Last modified: 2019/11/20 14:45
  • by jojo1973