Current state of Linux Dev Tools for Microchip

[John O.Battle]

A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
could run MPLAB.  As a result, I haven't been keeping up with the GNUPIC
mailing list lately and had just lapsed into using that machine for most
of my computing.

A couple of months ago, I started working on a new project out here
(NASA Jet Prop Lab) and they told me I had to do everything on UBUNTU
LINUX, so I happily reformatted my hard drive and put UBUNTU on it.  
What a great surprise when almost everything worked exactly as it was
supposed to.  The only exception is, again, MPLAB. So after trying
several times to get MPLAB to work under wine (numerous nagging errors
and I can't figure out how to make the ICD-2 work) I gave up once again.

But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the
Microchip parts.  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there
an App now or what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially
dsPIC) under Linux.  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and
tools but I still don't know how to program a part or debug.

Thanks

John Battle (N4OE)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory



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[Joseph.Julicher]

The PICkit2 is supported under linux by Microchip.  It can program a
growing number of devices.  We also have a debug version of the
firmware.  I don't know if that firmware is supported for linux.

Linux is on the roadmap in dev tools so all the tools will receive
support eventually but that is not going to happen soon.

Wine and MPLAB do not work because there are shared memory libraries
that are not running in Wine.  You might try VMware instead.  On my Mac
I have run Parallels and VmWare Fusion with 100% success for usb tools.

-----Original Message-----
From: John O.Battle [mailto:john.o.battle@...]
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 12:53 PM
To: gnupic@...
Subject: [gnupic] Current state of Linux Dev Tools for Microchip

A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
could run MPLAB.  As a result, I haven't been keeping up with the GNUPIC

mailing list lately and had just lapsed into using that machine for most

of my computing.

A couple of months ago, I started working on a new project out here
(NASA Jet Prop Lab) and they told me I had to do everything on UBUNTU
LINUX, so I happily reformatted my hard drive and put UBUNTU on it.  
What a great surprise when almost everything worked exactly as it was
supposed to.  The only exception is, again, MPLAB. So after trying
several times to get MPLAB to work under wine (numerous nagging errors
and I can't figure out how to make the ICD-2 work) I gave up once again.


But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the
Microchip parts.  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there
an App now or what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially
dsPIC) under Linux.  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and
tools but I still don't know how to program a part or debug.

Thanks

John Battle (N4OE)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory



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[J. W. Bruce]

Yesterday, I tried to build the v3.10 gcc
compiler with patches posted on Nabble.  After
futzing with the build script and fixing some
typos, the build ran to completion.
However, the pic30-elf-gcc program seg-faults
immediately.  (I did manage to get the binutils
programs to work, or at least, they don't
seg-fault.)

Has anyone successfully built v3.10 compiler
for Debian.  I run Ubuntu personally?  I would
rather not have to drop my gcc back to build
the v.3.0x code which reportedly works fine.

Thanks,
jwb

------------------
J.W. Bruce, Ph.D.,  Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Mississippi State University
406 Hardy Road, Simrall 335
Mississippi State, MS 39762-9571
Office: [phone]        FAX: [phone]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph Julicher" <Joseph.Julicher@...>
To: gnupic@...
Sent: Friday, August 1, 2008 3:29:03 PM (GMT-0600) America/Chicago
Subject: RE: [gnupic] Current state of Linux Dev Tools for Microchip

The PICkit2 is supported under linux by Microchip.  It can program a
growing number of devices.  We also have a debug version of the
firmware.  I don't know if that firmware is supported for linux.

Linux is on the roadmap in dev tools so all the tools will receive
support eventually but that is not going to happen soon.

Wine and MPLAB do not work because there are shared memory libraries
that are not running in Wine.  You might try VMware instead.  On my Mac
I have run Parallels and VmWare Fusion with 100% success for usb tools.

-----Original Message-----
From: John O.Battle [mailto:john.o.battle@...]
Sent: Friday, August 01, 2008 12:53 PM
To: gnupic@...
Subject: [gnupic] Current state of Linux Dev Tools for Microchip

A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
could run MPLAB.  As a result, I haven't been keeping up with the GNUPIC

mailing list lately and had just lapsed into using that machine for most

of my computing.

A couple of months ago, I started working on a new project out here
(NASA Jet Prop Lab) and they told me I had to do everything on UBUNTU
LINUX, so I happily reformatted my hard drive and put UBUNTU on it.  
What a great surprise when almost everything worked exactly as it was
supposed to.  The only exception is, again, MPLAB. So after trying
several times to get MPLAB to work under wine (numerous nagging errors
and I can't figure out how to make the ICD-2 work) I gave up once again.


But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the
Microchip parts.  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there
an App now or what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially
dsPIC) under Linux.  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and
tools but I still don't know how to program a part or debug.

Thanks

John Battle (N4OE)
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory



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[Peter Stuge-4]

On Fri, Aug 01, 2008 at 12:52:47PM -0700, John O.Battle wrote:
> so is there an App now or what? How do people develop microchip
> stuff (especially dsPIC) under Linux.

I like to use gpasm which is part of the gputils package. I haven't
tried the dsPICs however.


//Peter

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[Robert Pearce-3]

On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:52:47 -0700 John Battle wrote:
> A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
> under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
> could run MPLAB.
<snip>
>
> But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
> building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the
> Microchip parts.

Yes, absolutely, and for the very simple reason that the free GnuPIC tools for Linux work better than the Microchip ones.

Specifically, I started out with MPASM / MPSIM in the days before MPLAB. I discovered GPSim very shortly after I discovered Linux, and was amazed at how much more capable it was. Sure, it didn't support the particular chip I wanted to use, but being open source I was able to fix that quite quickly. What mattered was that GPSim allowed me to simulate my code in a simulated environment, not just in splendid isolation like MPSim. To my mind, that feature is essential to make a simulator worth having, and last I looked MPLAB still doesn't provide it.

>  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there
> an App now or what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially
> dsPIC) under Linux.  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and
> tools but I still don't know how to program a part or debug.

Well, I don't use the dsPIC, in fact I've only recently moved up to an 18F series device. However, for what I do the combination of gpasm, gplink and gpsim does everything I need to write the code, and then I program the chip with a home-built device. There are plenty of designs for such devices on the web, and there's Linux support for some of the "official" programmers too. If you want to program in C you can use SDCC, though I don't know how good the code it generates is. Mind you, my experience with HiSoft PICC / MPLAB on a project at work wasn't 100% problem free.

Actually, while on the subject, I recently tried to run some of my code in MPLAB to confirm whether GPSim correctly implemented the CPU behaviour. I couldn't. First, MPLAB wouldn't allow me to set things up right. Then it wouldn't compile. And when I got build errors, MPLAB refused to show me any results windows. Was that a Wine problem? No, because I was trying to run it natively on a WinXP box. So it's an MPLAB bug, and a complete killer.

I shall be sticking with the free Linux tools (also work on BSD and Windows).

Rob


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[Tamas Rudnai]

In Ubuntu you can install VirtualBox very easy, that works flawlessly for
quite some time now on my system. It is free and developed by Sun
Microsystem, who has I think the greatest experience on virtualization (Java
VM). Anyway, the one that is available like this is an Open Source Edition
(hey, have you ever seen VMWare surce?) So VirtualBox is open source, works
great (I think in many ways better than VMWare - I am officially working
with VMWare on my workplace...). The only drawback with OSE edition is that
there is no USB support, which could affect your case if you have USB
interface ICD2. In that case you can go to VirtualBox website and download
the evaluation version which is free to use for home users.

Tamas



On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 8:52 PM, John O.Battle <john.o.battle@...>wrote:

> A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
> under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
> could run MPLAB.  As a result, I haven't been keeping up with the GNUPIC
> mailing list lately and had just lapsed into using that machine for most of
> my computing.
>
> A couple of months ago, I started working on a new project out here (NASA
> Jet Prop Lab) and they told me I had to do everything on UBUNTU LINUX, so I
> happily reformatted my hard drive and put UBUNTU on it.  What a great
> surprise when almost everything worked exactly as it was supposed to.  The
> only exception is, again, MPLAB. So after trying several times to get MPLAB
> to work under wine (numerous nagging errors and I can't figure out how to
> make the ICD-2 work) I gave up once again.
> But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
> building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the Microchip
> parts.  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there an App now or
> what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially dsPIC) under Linux.
>  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and tools but I still don't
> know how to program a part or debug.
>
> Thanks
>
> John Battle (N4OE)
> NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
>
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: gnupic-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: gnupic-help@...
>
>

--
Rudonix DoubleSaver
http://www.rudonix.com

[Tamas Rudnai]

Robert, I am glad you are talking about this issue. To be honest I am very
satisfied with MPSIM except it cannot simulate couple of modules which is a
bit of annoying. For these problems I am experimenting with Proteus which is
promising, but far more expensive than I could afford. Ktechlab is something
similar but only supports selected PICs, so I think the only option is GPSim
as you said. BTW I was using GPutils as compiler / linker while was still
using MPLAB/MPSIM for testing algorithms - the reason as simple as GPutils
makes it possible to follow up the code in macros as well.

Is there any way to connect GPSim to any SPICE simulator that would allow me
to simulate the entire design (just as Proteus does)?

BTW what  was the reason SDCC and GPSim not to choose the gcc/gdb line?

Thanks,
Tamas



On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 11:24 PM, Robert Pearce <rob@...>wrote:

> On Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:52:47 -0700 John Battle wrote:
> > A few years ago, I finally gave up trying to make Microchip tools work
> > under Linux and just built a machine toi run (ugh) Windows XP just so I
> > could run MPLAB.
> <snip>
> >
> > But.....it started me to wondering if anyone has had any success in
> > building a programming environment as a native Linux app for the
> > Microchip parts.
>
> Yes, absolutely, and for the very simple reason that the free GnuPIC tools
> for Linux work better than the Microchip ones.
>
> Specifically, I started out with MPASM / MPSIM in the days before MPLAB. I
> discovered GPSim very shortly after I discovered Linux, and was amazed at
> how much more capable it was. Sure, it didn't support the particular chip I
> wanted to use, but being open source I was able to fix that quite quickly.
> What mattered was that GPSim allowed me to simulate my code in a simulated
> environment, not just in splendid isolation like MPSim. To my mind, that
> feature is essential to make a simulator worth having, and last I looked
> MPLAB still doesn't provide it.
>
> >  I see the mailing list is alive and well, so is there
> > an App now or what?  How do people develop microchip stuff (especially
> > dsPIC) under Linux.  I understand there is a port of the C compiler and
> > tools but I still don't know how to program a part or debug.
>
> Well, I don't use the dsPIC, in fact I've only recently moved up to an 18F
> series device. However, for what I do the combination of gpasm, gplink and
> gpsim does everything I need to write the code, and then I program the chip
> with a home-built device. There are plenty of designs for such devices on
> the web, and there's Linux support for some of the "official" programmers
> too. If you want to program in C you can use SDCC, though I don't know how
> good the code it generates is. Mind you, my experience with HiSoft PICC /
> MPLAB on a project at work wasn't 100% problem free.
>
> Actually, while on the subject, I recently tried to run some of my code in
> MPLAB to confirm whether GPSim correctly implemented the CPU behaviour. I
> couldn't. First, MPLAB wouldn't allow me to set things up right. Then it
> wouldn't compile. And when I got build errors, MPLAB refused to show me any
> results windows. Was that a Wine problem? No, because I was trying to run it
> natively on a WinXP box. So it's an MPLAB bug, and a complete killer.
>
> I shall be sticking with the free Linux tools (also work on BSD and
> Windows).
>
> Rob
>
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: gnupic-unsubscribe@...
> For additional commands, e-mail: gnupic-help@...
>
>

--
Rudonix DoubleSaver
http://www.rudonix.com

[Xiaofan Chen]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2008 at 4:29 AM,  <Joseph.Julicher@...> wrote:
> The PICkit2 is supported under linux by Microchip.  It can program a
> growing number of devices.  We also have a debug version of the
> firmware.  I don't know if that firmware is supported for linux.

The firmware is not the problem. The problem is the debugging
interface (API, or COM interface with MPLAB, or whatever it is called)
is kept as a secret by Microchip.

PICkit 2 as a programmer is well supported by pk2cmd V1.12.
It works under Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. I have also
got it to mostly works under FreeBSD 7 with an alternative
USB stack to be merged into main line kernel.

> Linux is on the roadmap in dev tools so all the tools will receive
> support eventually but that is not going to happen soon.

Nice to know that.

Xiaofan

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