It consists of a compiler, linker, assembler, and a debugger. The GNU toolchain is a programming tools produced by the GNU Project. The GNU toolchain plays a vital role in development of software for embedded systems. It can be ported to Microsoft Windows (via Cygwin and MinGW/MSYS).Quite often, the toolchain used for embedded development is a cross toolchain (cross compiler). In other words, when the host and target architectures are different, the toolchain is called a cross compiler (e.g. If we develop a code on a Linux machine based on the x64 architecture, but we're compiling for an ARM target, then we needLinux-based ARM-targeting cross compiler). This is the typical way of building embedded software.Picture source.

It shows you how to install the following tools on Mac OS, Linux and Windows: ARM. Sudo apt-get remove binutils-arm-none-eabi gcc-arm-none-eabi $ sudo. CodeSourcery convention is to use prefix arm-none-linux-gnueabi-for all executables, not gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi that you mention. So, standard name for CodeSourcery gcc would be arm-none-linux-gnueabi-gcc. After you have installed CodeSourcery G, you need to add CodeSourcery directory into your PATH. Typically, I prefer to install CodeSourcery into directory like /opt/arm.

Terminology for Cross Compilation ToolchainBefore we do any cross compilation, we need to clarify the terminology. Toolchain - Name conventionToolchain has a name convention: arch-vendor-os-abi. arch - architecturearm, mips, x86, i686, etc. vendor - tool chain supplier. os - operating systemlinux, none (bare metal). abi - application binary interfaceeabi, gnueabi, gnueabihfSamples:. arm-none-eabiThis toolchain targets the ARM architecture,has no vendor, does not target an operating system (i.e.

Targets a 'bare metal' system), and complieswith the ARM eabi.(Note) arm-elf and arm-none-eabi just use two versions of the ARM abi. The eabi toolchain uses a newer revision, but could also be called arm-elf-eabi, as it generates elf too.000f.

i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1This toolchain targetsthe Intel i686 architecture, the vendor is Apple, and the target OS is Darwin version 10.000f. arm-none-linux-gnueabiThe toolchain that can be installed in Debian-based systems using apackage manager like apt (the package is called gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi). This toolchain targets theARM architecture, has no vendor, creates binaries that run on the Linux operating system, and usesthe GNU EABI. Makefile - compile & linkBefore anything else, let's see how it works.

We'll make executable first. Formatting the output fileIn some cases, we might need to format the image from the build procedure forour specific target platform. One tool included with the GNU toolset that can assist with formatting images is the strip utility, whichis part of the binary utilities package called binutils.

The strip utility canremove particular sections from an object file. The basic command structure for the strip utility is:arm-elf-strip options input-file.o output-fileThe command used to strip symbol information is:$ arm-elf-strip -remove-section=.comment blinkdbg.exe -o blink.exeThis removes the section named '.comment' from the image 'blinkdbg.exe' and creates the new output file'blink.exe'.There might be another time when we need an image file that can be burned into ROM or flash. TheGNU toolset has just what you need for this task. The utility objcopy is able to copy thecontents of one object file into another object file. Reinstall h-encore.

The basic structure for the objcopy utility is:arm-elf-objcopy options input-file output-fileSuppose we want to convert our program from ELF format into an IntelHex Format file. The command line we use for this is:$ arm-elf-objcopy -O ihex blink.exe blink.hexThis command uses the '-O' ihex option to generate an Intel Hex Format file. The input file is 'blink.exe'(the objcopy utility determines the input file type). Finally, the output file is named 'blink.hex'.