manual:chapter1:buildfromsource

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Building newRPL from source code

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, go to http://qt-project.org and download the open source version. It will download a file named 'qt-unified-….', change the permissions to allow executing it as a program and run it to install Qt.
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, start Qt Creator, and navigate the menus and dialogs through Tools, Options… Build&Run, Kits and select the Desktop (default) configuration. 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

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

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

The first tool that needs building is elf2rom.

Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources/tools/elf2rom, then select the elf2rom.pro project file.

When prompted, just click on 'Configure project'. At the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows 'Debug'. Change it to 'Release'. On the left toolbox, select the wrench 'Projects' to access the build settings. Make sure 'Release' is the selected configuration, then 'Add Build Step' / 'Make', and in the 'Make arguments:' box type 'install' (without quotes). Now from the top menu, 'Build', 'Run QMake', then 'Rebuild All'. 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.

Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources, then select the newrpl-comp.pro project file.

When prompted, just click on 'Configure project'. At the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows 'Debug'. Change it to 'Release'. On the left toolbox, select the wrench 'Projects' to access the build settings. Make sure 'Release' is the selected configuration, then 'Add Build Step' / 'Make', and in the 'Make arguments:' box type 'install' (without quotes). Now from the top menu, 'Build', 'Run QMake', then 'Rebuild All'. 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.

Finished, the newrpl-comp tool was built and installed in the appropriate location to be used by the other projects.

Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources, then select the newrpl-comp.pro project file.

When prompted, just click on 'Configure project'. At the bottom-left of the screen, there will be an icon that looks like a screen and shows 'Debug'. Change it to 'Release'. Now from the top menu, 'Build', 'Run QMake', then 'Rebuild All'. 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.

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

Open Qt Creator, select Open Project, and go into newrpl-sources, then select the newrpl-fw.pro project file for the 50g target. Other project files are available for the other targets, follow exactly the same instructions for all targets.

When prompted, just click on 'Configure project'.

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 file /libgcc.a). 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.

One last check, the line that reads:

INCLUDEPATH += firmware/include newrpl xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 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, it needs to be changed 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. 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

Save and close the file. Now from the top menu, 'Build', 'Run QMake', then 'Rebuild All'. 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”

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

  • manual/chapter1/buildfromsource.1514868427.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2018/01/01 20:47
  • by claudio