Install the ARM cross compiler toolchain on your Linux Ubuntu PC

This article illustrates how to install on a Ubuntu Linux PC the complete toolchain to cross compile the Linux Kernel, the Linux device drivers, the Linux applications and the boot loader like as AT91Bootstrap and its derivates like AcmeBoot and AriaBoot.

This procedure has been tested on Linux Ubuntu 15.04.

Install the Cross Compilers, utilities, etc.

Install the GCC, G++ cross compilers and support programs by typing:

$ sudo apt-get install libc6-armel-cross libc6-dev-armel-cross
$ sudo apt-get install binutils-arm-linux-gnueabi
$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev

If you are using an Arietta, Aria or FOX board:

$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
$ sudo apt-get install g++-arm-linux-gnueabi

If you are using an Acqua board:

$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf
$ sudo apt-get install g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf

Now you are ready to cross-compile on your PC all the source available for the Acme Boards based on Atmel MPUs.

Try the cross C compiler

Let's try to cross compile a Hello World example in C and running it on an Acme board.

This is the example:

#include "stdio.h"
 
int main(void) {
  printf("Hello world !\n");
  return 0;
}

Compile it typing:

~$ arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc hello.c -o hello

As you can see we are using the ARM version of gcc just installed on your PC. It will generate an executable file for your Linux board.

Copy the executable file on the board via ssh:

~$ scp hello root@[your_board_ip]:/root

Then open a command session on your board and run the example:

~# ./hello
Hello world !

Try the cross C++ compiler

Let's try to cross compile a Hello World example in C++ and running it on an Acme board.

This is the example:

#include "iostream"
 
using namespace std;
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    cout << "Hello world !" << endl;
    return 0;
}

Compile it typing:

~$ arm-linux-gnueabi-g++ hello.cc -o hello

As you can see we are using the ARM version of gcc just installed on your PC. It will generate an executable file for your Linux board.

Copy the executable file on the board via ssh:

~$ scp hello root@[your_board_ip]:/root

Then open a command session on your board and run the example:

~# ./hello
Hello world !

ONE MORE METHOD IS BELLOW ID FIRST ONE NOT WORKED THEN JUST GO FOR SECOND METHOD:

Cross compilation for ARM based Linux systems

This steps are tested on Ubuntu Linux 12.04, but should work for other Linux distributions. I case of other distributions package names and names of cross compilation tools may differ. There are several popular EABI versions that are used on ARM platform. This tutorial is written for gnueabi and gnueabihf, but other variants should work with minimal changes.

Prerequisites

• Host computer with Linux;
• Git;
• CMake 2.6 or higher;
• Cross compilation tools for ARM: gcc, libstc++, etc. Depending on target platform you need to choose gnueabi or gnueabihf tools. Install command for gnueabi:

  sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
  

  Install command for gnueabihf:

  sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf
  

• pkgconfig;
• Python 2.6 for host system;
• [optional] ffmpeg or libav development packages for armeabi(hf): libavcodec-dev, libavformat-dev, libswscale-dev;
• [optional] GTK+2.x or higher, including headers (libgtk2.0-dev) for armeabi(hf);
• [optional] libdc1394 2.x;
• [optional] libjpeg-dev, libpng-dev, libtiff-dev, libjasper-dev for armeabi(hf).

Getting OpenCV Source Code

You can use the latest stable OpenCV version available in sourceforge or you can grab the latest snapshot from our Git repository.

Getting the Latest Stable OpenCV Version

• Go to our page on Sourceforge;
• Download the source tarball and unpack it.

Getting the Cutting-edge OpenCV from the Git Repository

Launch Git client and clone OpenCV repository

In Linux it can be achieved with the following command in Terminal:

cd ~/<my_working _directory>
git clone https://github.com/Itseez/opencv.git

Building OpenCV

1. Create a build directory, make it current and run the following command:

   cmake [<some optional parameters>] -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path to the OpenCV source directory>/platforms/linux/arm-gnueabi.toolchain.cmake <path to the OpenCV source directory>
   

   Toolchain uses gnueabihf EABI convention by default. Add -DSOFTFP=ON cmake argument to switch on softfp compiler.

   cmake [<some optional parameters>] -DSOFTFP=ON -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path to the OpenCV source directory>/platforms/linux/arm-gnueabi.toolchain.cmake <path to the OpenCV source directory>
   

   For example:

   cd ~/opencv/platforms/linux
   mkdir -p build_hardfp
   cd build_hardfp
   
   cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=../arm-gnueabi.toolchain.cmake ../../..
   

2. Run make in build (<cmake_binary_dir>) directory:

   make
   

Note

 

Optionally you can strip symbols info from the created library via install/strip make target. This option produces smaller binary (~ twice smaller) but makes further debugging harder.

Enable hardware optimizations

Depending on target platform architecture different instruction sets can be used. By default compiler generates code for armv5l without VFPv3 and NEON extensions. Add -DENABLE_VFPV3=ON to cmake command line to enable code generation for VFPv3 and -DENABLE_NEON=ON for using NEON SIMD extensions.

TBB is supported on multi core ARM SoCs also. Add -DWITH_TBB=ON and -DBUILD_TBB=ON to enable it. Cmake scripts download TBB sources from official project site http://threadingbuildingblocks.org/ and build it.

How do I cross-compile the kernel on a Ubuntu host?

Preparation

First, we need to install the required prerequisites. I assume you have sudo access.

sudo apt-get install git ncurses-dev make gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

• git is the version control system used by the Linux kernel team.
• ncurses is a library for build console menus. It is necessary for menuconfig.
• make runs the compilation for us.
• gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi is the cross-compiler.

Next, we need to retrieve the source, run:

git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux raspberrypi-linux
cd raspberrypi-linux

This will clone the source code to a directory called raspberrypi-linux and change to it.

Compilation

We first need to move the config file by running

cp arch/arm/configs/bcmrpi_cutdown_defconfig .config

Then configure the kernel build

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- oldconfig

Optional: Customise the build using menuconfig

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi- menuconfig

Then run the compilation

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc -k

References

• http://elinux.org/RPi_Kernel_Compilation
• https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux
• http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
• http://mitchtech.net/raspberry-pi-kernel-compile/