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  • Author Author: Jan Cumps
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Review 2: Atmel SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - Building the Libraries from Source

Jan Cumps

I've blogged about my first steps with the kit, Review 1: Unboxing and First Steps.

 

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Since then, I've been trying to set up a tool chain that can build the SAMA5D4X Explained Software Package from source (yes, it took me 9 days to get to this stage - tough board to get started with).

 

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I tried several tool chains and approaches. I'm not going to elaborate on the things that I didn't get working.

Here is what works for me on a Windows 8.1 64 install.

 

The Source

 

I downloaded the library and example sources from SAMA5D4 Software Package. There's an archive there with the name SAMA5D4 GNU Software Package 1.2 for Xplained board.

There are 3 sections in the package:

  • documentation
  • library sources
  • application sources

The documentation folders describe the libraries and the example applications. There's also an additional text document there that describes how to port the examples to Eclipse.

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tip:
Don't place the sources deep in your directory structure.

I had to shorten the name of libraries\libboard_sama5d4x-Xplained\include\xdma_hardware_interface.h , and adapt the file libraries\libboard_sama5d4x-Xplained\board.h to reflect that name change.

 

The Compiler

 

I've installed GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors (version 4.9 2015q1). I used the Windows installer and accepted all defaults.

I followed the install instructions from GNU ARM Eclipse. The install menu contains good info. I paid proper attention to what options to switch off in the installation programs.

 

The IDE

I reuse the Eclipse Luna edition that is running on my PC (Luna Service Release 1 (4.4.1)).

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The tool chain is available in Eclipse straight away if you follow the instructions from GNU ARM Eclipse.

 

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The Additional Build Tools

 

It's a good time to test now if the build process works by following the instructions in documentation\MigrationFromCStoEclipse.

If you don't have a working make installation on your computer, these following steps may be necessary:

Again following the instructions from GNU ARM Eclipse, you install the  GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors.

If done right the build tool chain is available in Eclipse.

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This would be a good test again to see if you can build a library.

I couldn't. My builds were still failing after this install. See Who has successfully compiled a project of SAMA5D4 GNU Software Package 1.2 for Xplained board on Windows? for details on what was going wrong.

 

I had to additionally add this software package to get it working: GnuWin32.

I picked up this requirement from on Received the Atmel SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra board! Yay! by  pettitda.

 

It becomes tricky here. Some of the tools appear in both additional build tools packages. You may have to be creative with the different path settings in Eclipse to make this all work.

 

 

With this setup, I could successfully build all libraries from source.

I haven't been able to build one of the examples and load it to the board. That's something for a next post.