Re: [avr-chat] Can't Install avr-gcc in FreeBSD

[David Brown]

Eric Weddington wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> It looks like I'm a bit behind in the thread. So I'll commit a faux pas here
> and see if I can reply to a bunch of comments, in random order, and without
> interleaving the thread.
>
> Yeah, Cygwin is a pain to use. I mean it's great to use for porting *nix
> software, for one's self. But redistribution is where the gotcha comes in,
> because everything gets linked to the cygwin1.dll and it doesn't play nicely
> with other versions of itself. The only alternative is MinGW, but then it
> sucks as a build platform because it doesn't have nearly as many packages as
> Cygwin does. Over the years I've finally learned that I have to have both
> Cygwin and MinGW for development; Cygwin for all the build tools, but build
> with the MinGW compilers. I've also learned that the club of people who are
> building cross-GCC compilers using Cygwin/MinGW is *very* small. So the
> "repository of common knowledge" is still very small. I learn something new
> every time I build WinAVR.

I've build cross-gcc compilers for four (IIRC) different architectures, 
both with Cygwin and MinGW, and often with patches from here and there. 
 I too can testify to learning something new almost every time.  Look 
on the bright side - the more you tear your hair out, the less you have 
to pay at the barber's.

> Avrdude has had the advantage that, when Brian opened it up and we (Brian,
> Joerg, myself, and Ted Roth) did the porting effort, it was designed with
> layers for different OSes. This certainly made it much easier to have it
> build under Cygwin/MinGW. Avarice and simulavr have never done this in the
> past, and will have to go through this process in the future to have them
> ported to MinGW. Something that I've wanted done for a long time.
>
> Yeah it took me awhile to go find all the tools needed to build the avr-libc
> docs. Part of the problem was that I wasn't always on the lookout for the
> tools. I admit that it was much easier to just download the existing
> documentation. But, I also admit, that the tools situation on Windows has
> steadily improved over the years. It's becoming easier and easier to do all
> the same things as on *nix.
>
> Yeah it's a bit odd that the MSP430 development is not done in the FSF tree.
> But, hey, it's to the AVR's advantage. ;-) Although, I hate to admit that I
> wasn't aware that there was a GCC port for Microchip's products. I had heard
> of a possible port a while back (1-2 years ago maybe?) but I never knew what
> came of it. Pointers welcome.

The Microchip gcc compilers are for one of their newer cores (not the 
old PICs), and are the official compiler from Microchip.  I don't think 
they go out of their way to make it easy to compile from source, but the 
code is available.

> I've been really amazed at this thread and the people contributing to this
> thread. This has to be one of the most civil discussions about Operating
> Systems and software that I've been a part of in a long time! :-) Yeah, I'm
> not a big fan of Microsoft Windows and its lack of reliability and I really
> detest Microsoft's business practices. But I'm also a bit of a pragmatist in
> that there are many, many users on Windows, for one reason or another.

I guess the lack of flames is because we are all basically on the same 
side - we all see open source software as a good development model 
(especially for avr development!).  If you want to see a bit more 
action, wander along to comp.arch.embedded and look at any thread with 
Chris "open source is only used by hobbyists and other irrelevant poor 
people" Hills or Wilco "gcc is ten years behind commercial compiler 
technology" Dijkstra as they try to argue against the rest of the world. 
 There's always at least one such thread active.

Personally, I'm with you on the pragmatism - use the best tool for the 
job, and support what people need or want to use.

mvh.,

David

> I agree the installation system (or lack thereof) on Windows is maddening,
> and I'm a victim of it. Joerg has talked to me about having a more
> fine-grained installer for, what, a couple of years now? I still think that
> it's a good idea, but it also means a lot of work in trying to implement it.
> *nix systems, such as the FreeBSD ports system are better designed for
> things like this. For Windows and WinAVR, I have to do all the heavy lifting
> to implement it. And honestly, I haven't made time for it. From my view
> there are many other places where the toolchain could be improved, such as
> running the GCC regression test on a regular basis. :-) It's funny, but one
> my long-term goals in doing WinAVR was always to introduce Windows users to
> the concept of Open Source software with the intent that they would use more
> and more and eventually move away from Windows to an open source OS. I've
> now seen some fruits of this in that there are a number of users on AVR
> Freaks who have openly said that they have moved, or are moving, to Linux.
> It's funny because I have yet to make the move myself. :-) But some of this
> is changing in that I now have a dual boot Linux machine (Fedora/Ubuntu) at
> work that I will use for a lab computer.
>
> @Brian:
> Things have been going very well. Very busy, but very well. :-) Hope things
> have been well with you too.
>
> Anyway, I might've forgotten something, but I hoped I covered the thread...
>
> Eric Weddington