Ada ARM Linux Compiler

[Bryan]

All,

Does anyone know if it is possible to generate a cross build of gcc
with ada support that targets an ARM processor, specifically a gumstix
embedded board with Marvell Xscale PXA270? The host is an x86 machine
running ubuntu. If it is possible does anyone have a quick step by
step what do i need to build and where are the possible traps? I have
tried using the build environment for the gumstix with no success, gcc
always fails with a rather cryptic error message usually involving
some kind of source code error. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bryan Campbell

[Gene]

Thanks! I'm very interested in this as well. Some of my folks tried
pretty hard and could not get it to work, but that was 2 versions of
gcc ago. We could build a cross-compiler, but never a usable runtime,
so we gave up. I wrote AdaCore asking what it would cost for them to
do the work and received no reply.

[Samuel Tardieu]

>>>>> "Gene" == Gene <gene.r...@gmail.com> writes:

Bryan> Does anyone know if it is possible to generate a cross build of gcc
Bryan> with ada support that targets an ARM processor, specifically a
Bryan> gumstix embedded board with Marvell Xscale PXA270? The host is an
Bryan> x86 machine running ubuntu. If it is possible does anyone have a
Bryan> quick step by step what do i need to build and where are the
Bryan> possible traps? I have tried using the build environment for the
Bryan> gumstix with no success, gcc always fails with a rather cryptic
Bryan> error message usually involving some kind of source code error. Any
Bryan> help would be greatly appreciated.

Gene> Thanks! I'm very interested in this as well. Some of my folks
Gene> tried pretty hard and could not get it to work, but that was 2
Gene> versions of gcc ago. We could build a cross-compiler, but never
Gene> a usable runtime, so we gave up. I wrote AdaCore asking what it
Gene> would cost for them to do the work and received no reply.

Bryan, Gene,

if you want to give it a try, I produced a quick patch for the latest
GCC SVN trunk which may work or may not work.

You must:

- fetch the latest GCC sources from the FSF, SVN trunk, see

http://gcc.gnu.org/svn.html

to retrieve the sources

- apply the patch found at

http://www.rfc1149.net/tmp/arm-linux-gnat-port.patch

- build and install a native Ada+C compiler from those patched
sources

- build and install a cross compiler from those patched sources
using the compiler built previously (it is important to have the
cross-compiler built from a native compiler using the same
version)

I do not have any ARM board to test it. Please keep me informed
privately (maybe keeping each other in Cc:) of how it went, so that I
can add this patch to the GCC sources if it is working for you.

Sam
--
Samuel Tardieu -- s...@rfc1149.net -- http://www.rfc1149.net/

[micro...@gmail.com]

Hi,

I am currently playing with RTEMS 4.8.99 targeted for the Game Boy
Advance which is ARM based. I used the instructions found at
http://www.rtems.com/wiki/index.php/RTEMSAda to build the cross
compiler. My setup is Slackware-current with GCC 4.2.3.

Micronian Coder

[Bryan]

> Advance which is ARM based. I used the instructions found athttp://www.rtems.com/wiki/index.php/RTEMSAdato build the cross

> compiler. My setup is Slackware-current with GCC 4.2.3.
>
> Micronian Coder

I tried those instructions prior to posting here but the platform I am
building for uses posix threading instead of RTEMS threads and the gcc
compilation failed after changing the threading model in the
configuration. The other complication is that the kernel is built for
this target using the openembedded bitbake method which I don't quite
understand yet.

-Bryan

[Alejandro R. Mosteo]

> Advance which is ARM based. I used the instructions found athttp://www.rtems.com/wiki/index.php/RTEMSAdato build the cross

> compiler. My setup is Slackware-current with GCC 4.2.3.
>
> Micronian Coder

Hello! Any news on this (or the whole thread)? I'm just starting to
tinker with homebrew for the nintendo DS, for which there is a nice C/C
++ toolchain [1], and I was wondering how hard would be to get a gnat
crosscompiler to ARM.

I see it's no way trivial, so I also wonder if

1) would it be easy without the runtime (pragma No_Run_Time)?
1.b) How useful is gnat without the runtime? I more or less get what
wouldn't be available, but cannot find a exhaustive listing in the
docs (besides that No_Run_Time is not even recommended anymore,
deprecated in favor of customizing the runtime).

[1] www.devkitpro.org

[micro...@gmail.com]

On Jul 14, 1:23 am, "Alejandro R. Mosteo" <mos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1 jul, 18:49, microni...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jun 30, 12:43 pm, Bryan <kamikaze.de...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > All,
>
> > > Does anyone know if it is possible to generate a cross build of gcc
> > > with ada support that targets an ARM processor, specifically a gumstix
> > > embedded board with Marvell Xscale PXA270? The host is an x86 machine
> > > running ubuntu. If it is possible does anyone have a quick step by
> > > step what do i need to build and where are the possible traps? I have
> > > tried using the build environment for the gumstix with no success, gcc
> > > always fails with a rather cryptic error message usually involving
> > > some kind of source code error. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> > > Thanks,
>
> > > Bryan Campbell
>
> > Hi,
>
> > I am currently playing with RTEMS 4.8.99 targeted for the Game Boy

> > Advance which is ARM based. I used the instructions found athttp://www.rtems.com/wiki/index.php/RTEMSAdatobuild the cross

> > compiler. My setup is Slackware-current with GCC 4.2.3.
>
> > Micronian Coder
>
> Hello! Any news on this (or the whole thread)? I'm just starting to
> tinker with homebrew for the nintendo DS, for which there is a nice C/C
> ++ toolchain [1], and I was wondering how hard would be to get a gnat
> crosscompiler to ARM.
>
> I see it's no way trivial, so I also wonder if
>
> 1) would it be easy without the runtime (pragma No_Run_Time)?
> 1.b) How useful is gnat without the runtime? I more or less get what
> wouldn't be available, but cannot find a exhaustive listing in the
> docs (besides that No_Run_Time is not even recommended anymore,
> deprecated in favor of customizing the runtime).
>
> [1]www.devkitpro.org

When I built the RTEMS+GBA toolset, I also tried to build the RTEMS
+NDS ones as well. The tools did compile without complaints. When I
tried to compile a simple hello program, the compiler stated that the
NDS supported mixing Thumb and normal ARM code, but the run-time
system was not built to support it. Since I wanted to focus on GBA
first, I haven't bothered to rebuild the tools for NDS. If you follow
the instructions on http://www.rtems.com/wiki/index.php/RTEMSAda
there's a good chance you can generate a usable set of tools. If you
run into problems, I'm sure someone from the RTEMS mailing list will
be happy to help out.

Btw, I read somewhere on the RTEMS mailing list that the NDS support
is now updated to use DevKitPro.

--Micronian Coder

[Alex R. Mosteo]

micro...@gmail.com wrote:

That sounds indeed promising. Thanks!