Installing Gnuarm ARM Toolchain on Ubuntu 9.04

It can be surprisingly difficult to install an ARM toolchain on Linux. As far as I know, there's no apt package that is currently maintained, so you have to build it from source. This posting shows how I installed the gnuarm toolchain on Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope). I installed Ubuntu on a VirtualBox virtual machine, but it should work the same for a regular install.

The toolchain includes a number of pieces: binutils, which includes the linker, assembler, etc; gcc, the compiler; newlib, a standard C library for embedded systems; and GDB, the debugger. I also included Sam_I_Am and sam7utils, which allow one to program ATMEL SAM microcontrollers over USB.

First you need to install some dependencies. It's a good idea to upgrade your system at this time also.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install libgmp3-dev libmpfr-dev build-essential zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev patch texinfo libreadline5-dev

The following script should install the components. It's based on a script from Uwe Hermann which fails to build on Ubuntu. Comment out the last section if you're not using ATMEL harware. The USB serial modules isn't included in the 2.6.28-11-generic kernel that is the current kernel, so you may have to upgrade to 2.6.28-12-generic using the pre-release sources. You can check your kernel version with

uname -a

The .samiamrc file is for AT91SAM7S256 device; you'll have to edit it if you use a different one.
Run the following script with 'sudo' and get a coffee, it takes a while.

#!/bin/sh
# Written by Uwe Hermann , released as public domain.
# Edited by Travis Wiens

TARGET=arm-elf # Or: TARGET=arm-none-eabi
PREFIX=/usr/local/arm # Install location of your final toolchain
PARALLEL="" # Or: PARALLEL=""

BINUTILS=binutils-2.19.1
GCC=gcc-4.3.3
NEWLIB=newlib-1.17.0
GDB=gdb-6.8

export PATH="$PATH:$PREFIX/bin"

mkdir build

wget -c http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/$BINUTILS.tar.bz2
tar xfvj $BINUTILS.tar.bz2
cd build
../$BINUTILS/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls --with-float=soft --disable-werror
make $PARALLEL all
make install
cd ..
#rm -rf build/* $BINUTILS $BINUTILS.tar.bz2

wget -c ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/$GCC/$GCC.tar.bz2
tar xfvj $GCC.tar.bz2
cd build
../$GCC/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c,c++" --with-newlib --without-headers --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-float=soft --disable-werror
make $PARALLEL all-gcc
make install-gcc
cd ..
#rm -rf build/* $GCC.tar.bz2

wget -c ftp://sources.redhat.com/pub/newlib/$NEWLIB.tar.gz
tar xfvz $NEWLIB.tar.gz
cd build
../$NEWLIB/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls --with-float=soft --disable-werror
make $PARALLEL
make install
cd ..
#rm -rf build/* $NEWLIB $NEWLIB.tar.gz

# Yes, you need to build gcc again!
cd build
../$GCC/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c,c++" --with-newlib --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-float=soft --disable-werror
make $PARALLEL
make install
cd ..
#rm -rf build/* $GCC

wget -c ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gdb/$GDB.tar.bz2
tar xfvj $GDB.tar.bz2
cd build
../$GDB/configure --target=$TARGET --prefix=$PREFIX --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --disable-werror
make $PARALLEL
make install
cd ..
#rm -rf build $GDB $GDB.tar.bz2

sudo ln -s $PREFIX/bin/arm-elf* /usr/bin

cd ..
mkdir Sam_I_Am
cd Sam_I_Am
wget http://claymore.engineer.gvsu.edu/%7Esteriana/Software/Sam_I_Am-0.3.tar.gz
tar xfvz Sam_I_Am-0.3.tar.gz
cd Sam_I_Am-0.3
python setup.py install
cd ..
echo "
open /dev/ttyUSB0
version
set readallow 0 0x300000
set ramwriteallow 0x202000 57344
set flashwriteallow 0x100000 0x40000
" >> .samiamrc
cp .samiamrc ~/

rm /usr/bin/Sam_I_Am
echo "
#!/bin/sh
python /usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/Sam_I_Am/samiam.py $*
" >> /usr/bin/Sam_I_Am
chmod a=rx /usr/bin/Sam_I_Am

sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x3eb product=0x6124
#this fails on kernel 2.6.28-11-generic, upgrade to latest prerelease


#install sam7utils
cd ..
wget http://oss.tekno.us/sam7utils/sam7utils-0.2.1.tar.gz
tar xfvz sam7utils-0.2.1.tar.gz
cd sam7utils-0.2.1
./configure
make
make install
ln -s /dev/ttyUSB0 /dev/at91_0

You'll have to run

sudo modprobe usbserial vendor=0x3eb product=0x6124

each time you restart.

To program the device, use

sam7 --exec set_clock --exec unlock_regions --exec "flash main.bin"