Unix Toolchain Linux Setup

This page contains instructions for setting up a Linux computer for use with the Unix toolchain. (Setup instructions for other operating systems are also available.)

These instructions have been tested successfully on:

• Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04 (32- and 64-bit)
• Fedora 17 (64-bit)

Generic instructions for other distributions are also provided. Please contact us with any updates for distros not already covered!

Collect and Install Tools

First, you’ll need some tools.

Warning

Due to firmware bugs in our bootloader, you must use recent versions of dfu-util, or uploads will not work. dfu-util versions 0.6 and greater should work.

Debian-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, etc.):

Install mandatory and optional tools with

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential git-core screen dfu-util python python-serial

On 64-bit distros only, you will also need to install some 32-bit libraries needed by the LeafLabs-supported ARM GCC toolchain with

# 64-bit systems only!
$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

You may also need to remove brltty with

# Optional
$ sudo apt-get remove brltty

Brltty provides braille access to the console. It has been reported to cause conflicts with Maple.

Red Hat-based distributions (RHEL, Fedora, Centos, etc.):

Install mandatory and optional tools with

$ sudo yum install screen git python pyserial dfu-util make

On 64-bit distros only, you will also need to install 32-bit libraries needed by the LeafLabs-supported ARM GCC toolchain with

# 64-bit systems only!
$ sudo yum install glibc.i686

You may also need to remove brltty with one of these:

# Optional, 64-bit systems:
$ sudo yum erase brltty.x86_64

# Optional, 32-bit systems:
$ sudo yum erase brltty.i686

Brltty provides braille access to the console. It has been reported to cause conflicts with Maple.

Other Linux distributions:

On other distributions, you’ll need to figure this out for yourself (please contact us if you have instructions for distros not covered here!).

Mandatory tools:

• Git is a distributed version control system. We use it to track our source code.
• dfu-util is a tool from the OpenMoko project. It is used to upload programs to the Maple over USB.
• Make is used to direct compilation.
• Python is a programming language. Our reset script, which sends control signals to the board which cause it to to reset and enter the bootloader, is written in Python (and works with Python 2 or 3). Most Linux distributions these days include Python by default.
• PySerial is a Python library for interacting with serial port devices. It’s needed by our reset script. PySerial can also be installed with easy_install.

Optional tools:

• screen is a screen manager used here to connect to serial port devices. (Some popular alternatives are Minicom and Kermit).

Fetch libmaple and Compiler Toolchain

First, make a Git clone of libmaple:

$ cd ~
$ git clone git://github.com/leaflabs/libmaple.git libmaple

Next, download the Linux ARM GCC toolchain you’ll use to build your programs. Extract the archive into a directory named arm. Put the resulting arm/bin subdirectory somewhere in your PATH. For example, if you have wget installed, you can run:

$ cd ~/libmaple
$ wget http://static.leaflabs.com/pub/codesourcery/gcc-arm-none-eabi-latest-linux32.tar.gz
$ tar xvf gcc-arm-none-eabi-latest-linux32.tar.gz
$ export PATH=$PATH:~/libmaple/arm/bin

You can check that this worked by entering arm-none- and hitting tab to auto-complete; your shell should show a bunch of results. After you’re done, you’ll probably want to update your shell startup script so the arm/bin directory stays in your PATH.

Install udev Rules

From the libmaple directory, copy our udev rules [1] to /etc/udev/rules.d:

$ sudo cp support/scripts/45-maple.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/45-maple.rules

Then restart udev.

Debian-based distros:

Make sure you are in the plugdev group (e.g. by running $ groups and seeing if the output includes “plugdev”). If not, add yourself to plugdev with

$ sudo usermod -a -G plugdev $USER

then log back out and log back in.

After that’s done, restart udev:

$ sudo restart udev

Red Hat-based distros:

$ udevadm control --reload-rules

After restarting udev, you’ll need to unplug and re-plug your Maple.

So far, so good?

Great! Move on by compiling a sample program.

Footnotes

[1]	As a security precaution on Linux, unknown USB devices can only be accessed by root. This udev script identifies the Maple based on its vendor and product IDs, mounts it to /dev/maple, and (for Debian-based distros) grants read/write permissions to the plugdev group.