MSP430 and Fedora 21 - The same but different

If you've tried doing any work with the GCC compiler officially packaged by the Fedora Project, you've probably run into issues when trying to link. The issue is correctly identified on that bug report, the strip step of building the RPM needs to be worked around. Unfortunately the maintainer of those packages hasn't stepped forward to push a fix.

I considered fixing the issue myself, but I'd recently discovered that TI and Red Hat have started work on their own supported version of the GNU toolchain for the MSP430. Instead of fixing the current packages (which are packaging source that is over 4 years old now), I packaged the new TI / Red Hat version. Sure, it was time consuming, but when you have a new yo-yo your brother got you for Christmas, the compile time just flies by.




Before pressing on, I should let you know you know that if you intend on using GDB for debugging your MSP430 projects, you'll be stuck installing both the toolchain and the XDS Emulation Software Package directly from TI so that you can copy the necessary files to use the XDS GDB Agent for the MSP430. The licensing does not allow me to package those particular files (if someone from TI would like to make a deal, feel free to contact me). Since you'd be doing a full install anyway, using my repo may not hold much appeal for you.

With that out of the way, let's go through what it takes to install my packages, and use the newer GCC version. First, enable my 'msp430-development-tools' Copr repo. Then install the toolchain and support files:

# yum install msp430-elf-gcc msp430-elf-binutils msp430-elf-gdb mspds msp430flasher msp430-gcc-support-files dos2unix

If you have the official Fedora packages installed, (particularly the msp430mcu package), you may have package conflicts when installing the above. Remove the offical Fedora MSP430 development packages then run the above command again.

With that installed, you're ready to compile for the MSP430, and flash binaries as well. Unfortunately the commands for both have changed. For your convenience, here is an updated Makefile for Project 0.1 which shows the changes (the prefix for the compiler binaries is now msp430-elf, and we flash using MSP430Flasher):

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

# # Makefile for msp430 # # 'make' builds everything # 'make clean' deletes everything except source files and Makefile # 'make install' builds everything, and programs the MSP430 using MSPFLASHER # You need to set TARGET, MCU and SOURCES for your project. # TARGET is the name of the executable file to be produced # $(TARGET).elf $(TARGET).hex and $(TARGET).txt nad $(TARGET).map are all generated. # The TXT file is used for BSL loading, the ELF can be used for JTAG use # TARGET = project0 MCU = msp430f5529 # MSP430Flasher name MSPFLASHER = MSP430Flasher # List all the source files here # eg if you have a source file foo.c then list it here SOURCES = main.c delay.c # Include are located in the Include directory INCLUDES = -IInclude # Add or subtract whatever MSPGCC flags you want. There are plenty more ####################################################################################### CFLAGS = -mmcu=$(MCU) -g -Os -Wall -Wunused $(INCLUDES) ASFLAGS = -mmcu=$(MCU) -x assembler-with-cpp -Wa,-gstabs LDFLAGS = -mmcu=$(MCU) -Wl,-Map=$(TARGET).map ######################################################################################## CC = msp430-elf-gcc LD = msp430-elf-ld AR = msp430-elf-ar AS = msp430-elf-gcc NM = msp430-elf-nm OBJCOPY = msp430-elf-objcopy RANLIB = msp430-elf-ranlib STRIP = msp430-elf-strip SIZE = msp430-elf-size READELF = msp430-elf-readelf MAKETXT = srec_cat CP = cp -p RM = rm -f MV = mv ######################################################################################## # the file which will include dependencies DEPEND = $(SOURCES:.c=.d) # all the object files OBJECTS = $(SOURCES:.c=.o) all: $(TARGET).elf $(TARGET).hex $(TARGET).txt $(TARGET).elf: $(OBJECTS) echo "Linking $@" $(CC) $(OBJECTS) $(LDFLAGS) $(LIBS) -o $@ echo echo ">>>> Size of Firmware <<<<" $(SIZE) $(TARGET).elf echo %.hex: %.elf $(OBJCOPY) -O ihex $< $@ %.txt: %.hex $(MAKETXT) -O $@ -TITXT $< -I unix2dos $(TARGET).txt # The above line is required for the DOS based TI BSL tool to be able to read the txt file generated from linux/unix systems. %.o: %.c echo "Compiling $<" $(CC) -c $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $< # rule for making assembler source listing, to see the code %.lst: %.c $(CC) -c $(ASFLAGS) -Wa,-anlhd $< > $@ # include the dependencies unless we're going to clean, then forget about them. ifneq ($(MAKECMDGOALS), clean) -include $(DEPEND) endif # dependencies file # includes also considered, since some of these are our own # (otherwise use -MM instead of -M) %.d: %.c echo "Generating dependencies $@ from $<" $(CC) -M ${CFLAGS} $< >$@ .SILENT: .PHONY: clean clean: -$(RM) $(OBJECTS) -$(RM) $(TARGET).* -$(RM) $(SOURCES:.c=.lst) -$(RM) $(DEPEND) install: $(TARGET).txt $(MSPFLASHER) -n $(MCU) -w "$(TARGET).txt" -v -z [VCC]

From there, everything continues as normal, typing 'make' compiles, 'make install' will compile and write to the LaunchPad, running the program when the write is finished.

Debugging using GDB is a bit more involved. You will need the "Redhat GCC Linux installer incl. support files and debug stack and USB drivers" as well as the Linux version of the XDS Emulation Software Package. Install both using the '.run' files as instructed. The following instructions assume you do not want to leave those packages installed. So we copy the necessary files for the XDS GDB Agent. Make a folder to put the agent in, then, assuming you installed the packages to the default location, copy both '~/ti/gcc/bin/gdb_agent_console' and '~/ti/gcc/msp430.dat' to your newly created folder. You can now remove the above packages by running '~/ti/gcc/uninstall' and '~/ti/uninstallers/uninstall_ti_emupack_5.1.636.0'. Then delete the leftover 'ti' directory. If you are running 64 bit Fedora, you will also need a 32 bit install of the MSP Debug Stack, which I have packaged here.

You can now start the GDB agent by typing './gdb_agent_console msp430.dat'. Connect to the agent the same way we did in Project 0.2, but instead using 'msp430-elf-gdb' and changing the port number to 55000. From there, debugging is the same.

Extra credit: interrupts

If you run into compile errors in projects with interrupts, check this out.

Extra extra credit: easy debug bridge

Having to be in the folder you copied the XDS GDB Agent to is a real drag. I hacked together the below script, and symlinked it into my path, so I can launch the debug agent wherever I am:

1 2 3 4

#!/bin/bash DIR="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")" $DIR/gdb_agent_console $DIR/msp430.dat