FPGARM4U devmachine setup
From Fpga4u
Contents
Developer Debian machine setup
Setup the machine
How to setup the Debian machine that will be used for the development of the software used by the FPGARM4U embedded system.
Get a new computer or setup a virtual machine manager software (VMWare (prefered, http://www.vmware.com/fr/, NOT free), VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org/, GPL license), put the Debian NetInstall cdrom (http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r3/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r3-i386-netinst.iso) in the cdrom reader or set the Debian NetInstall cdrom image in the cdrom configuration of the virtual machine, press the play button (power on), type the the following string in order to be able to change some default settings during the setup process
expert hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false bootkbd=en
... Install Debian Etch tutorial (http://www.debian.org/)... about 2 hours
In order to use the version 4.2 of the GNU C Compiler there is the need to upgrade the Debian installation up to the "unstable" revision.
Stable (Etch) -> Testing (Lenny) -> Unstable (Sid)
First, increase the maximum cache dimension for the tool "apt" adding the line
APT::Cache-Limit "32777216";
at the end of the file : /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf.
Add the lines referring to the "testing" repository to the file: /etc/apt/sources.list :
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
Then the system needs to download the list of the new available packages
# apt-get update
The system needs to upgrade the software already installed
# apt-get upgrade # apt-get dist-upgrade
to upgrade the distribution to the "testing" version.
You can add the line that refers to the cross-toolchain repository to the file /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ testing main
and update the list of packages.
Now you can check that there is available the version 4.1 of the toolchain:
# apt-cache search arm | grep g++- --> g++-4.1-arm-linux-gnu - The GNU C++ compiler
In the same way, you can move from the "testing" to the "unstable" version.
Add the line to the file: /etc/apt/sources.list :
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
Get the list of packages and upgrade the system
# apt-get update # apt-get upgrade # apt-get dist-upgrade
Add the lines related to the cross-toolchain repository to the file: /etc/apt/sources.list :
deb http://www.emdebian.org/debian/ unstable main
and update the list
# apt-get update # apt-get upgrade
Now you can check that there is available the version 4.2 (or more recent) of the toolchain:
# apt-cache search arm | grep g++- --> g++-4.2-arm-linux-gnu - The GNU C++ compiler
You can some install essential software :
# apt-get install vim-full screen gpm ssh
Setup the Cross-toolchain
The developer needs a cross-toolchain to compile the Linux Kernel and the other software for the target ARM architecture using an i386 machine to compile the source code. In the Debian distribution there is available the GNU toolchain based on the Gnu C Compiler, tape
# apt-get install g++-4.2-arm-linux-gnu
to install the cross-toolchain on the developer machine.
If there is no problem of package dependency in the debian distribution, the developer environment should be ready to configure and compile the kernel.
If there is any problem of package dependency you have to download the source code of the whole cross-toolchain (compiler, linker, assembler, library,...) and recompile them by yourself.
Setup the TFTP server
Install the nfs and the tftpboot servers to be able to download the kernel to the FPGARM4U board at boot time and to export a Network File System for the FPGARM4U linux operating system.
# apt-get install nfsboot nfs-kernel-server tftpd-hpa
Configure the tftpd-hpa package to have a ready tftpboot server. set the /etc/default/tftp-hpa file as
RUN_DAEMON="yes" OPTION="-l -s /var/lib/tftpboot"
Restart the daemon
# /etc/init.d/tftpd-hpa start
copy the uImage (...) file of the Linux Kernel in the /var/lib/tftpboot/ directory. Each file in the directory /var/lib/tftpboot/ of the NFS server machine is now available to be downloaded through the network using the TFTP protocol.
Setup the NFS server
Install and configure the Root File System using the debootstrap package as described here to get the basic packages compiled for the ARM architecture or get a ready Root File System and copy it inside the directory /srv/fpgarm4u_rfs_A .
Install the NFS server software to make available the RootFileSystem to the FPGARM4U boards
# apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap
Create the fpgarm4u_rfs_A directory in the /srv/ path if it does not exist yet
# mkdir /srv/fpgarm4u_rfs_A
add the line to the /etc/exports file of the server machine:
/srv/fpgarm4u_rfs_A/ <ip_client>(rw,no_root_squash,sync)
and run
# exportfs -a
to update the nfs server
add to the /etc/fstab of the client machine (in the new root file system):
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 <ip_server>:/srv/fpgarm4u_rfs_A / ext3 defaults,continue 0 0
All the files inside the directory /srv/fpgarm4u_rfs_A/ are available for the connection by the client machine (FPGARM4U).
(Follow the steps here to setup the Root File System in the current directory)
