This discussion is Unix specific. [FIXME: troth/2002-08-13: we need a volunteer to add windows specific notes to these instructions.]
The default behaviour for most of these tools is to install every thing under the /usr/local directory. In order to keep the AVR tools separate from the base system, it is usually better to install everything into /usr/local/avr. If the /usr/local/avr directory does not exist, you should create it before trying to install anything. You will need root access to install there. If you don't have root access to the system, you can alternatively install in your home directory, for example, in $HOME/local/avr. Where you install is a completely arbitrary decision, but should be consistent for all the tools.
You specify the installation directory by using the --prefix=dir option with the configure script. It is important to install all the AVR tools in the same directory or some of the tools will not work correctly. To ensure consistency and simplify the discussion, we will use $PREFIX to refer to whatever directory you wish to install in. You can set this as an environment variable if you wish as such (using a Bourne-like shell):
$ PREFIX=$HOME/local/avr $ export PREFIX
PATH environment variable set to search the directory you install everything in before you start installing anything. For example, if you use --prefix=$PREFIX, you must have $PREFIX/bin in your exported PATH. As such:$ PATH=$PATH:$PREFIX/bin $ export PATH
CC set to anything other than avr-gcc in your environment, this will cause the configure script to fail. It is best to not have CC set at all.
You can develop programs for AVR devices without the following tools. They may or may not be of use for you.
The binutils package provides all the low-level utilities needed in building and manipulating object files. Once installed, your environment will have an AVR assembler (avr-as), linker (avr-ld), and librarian (avr-ar and avr-ranlib). In addition, you get tools which extract data from object files (avr-objcopy), dissassemble object file information (avr-objdump), and strip information from object files (avr-strip). Before we can build the C compiler, these tools need to be in place.
Download and unpack the source files:
$ bunzip2 -c binutils-<version>.tar.bz2 | tar xf - $ cd binutils-<version>
with the version of the package you downloaded.
gunzip instead of bunzip2.binutils in a subdirectory so as not to pollute the source with the compiled files. This is recommended by the binutils developers.
$ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr
The next step is to configure and build the tools. This is done by supplying arguments to the configure script that enable the AVR-specific options.
$ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr --disable-nls
If you don't specify the --prefix option, the tools will get installed in the /usr/local hierarchy (i.e. the binaries will get installed in /usr/local/bin, the info pages get installed in /usr/local/info, etc.) Since these tools are changing frequently, It is preferrable to put them in a location that is easily removed.
When configure is run, it generates a lot of messages while it determines what is available on your operating system. When it finishes, it will have created several Makefiles that are custom tailored to your platform. At this point, you can build the project.
$ make
Makefile uses GNU make syntax. This means FreeBSD users may need to build the tools by using gmake.root access to install them. To install:
$ make install
You should now have the programs from binutils installed into $PREFIX/bin. Don't forget to set your PATH environment variable before going to build avr-gcc.
avr-gcc are essentially same as for binutils:
$ bunzip2 -c gcc-<version>.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
$ cd gcc-<version>
$ mkdir obj-avr
$ cd obj-avr
$ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr --enable-languages=c,c++ \
--disable-nls
$ make
$ make install
To save your self some download time, you can alternatively download only the gcc-core-<version>.tar.bz2 and gcc-c++-<version>.tar.bz2 parts of the gcc. Also, if you don't need C++ support, you only need the core part and should only enable the C language support.
The stdc++ libs are not included with C++ for AVR due to the size limitations of the devices.
reconf script before using either of the build methods described below.
$ gunzip -c avr-libc-<version>.tar.gz $ cd avr-libc-<version> $ ./doconf $ ./domake $ cd build $ make install
doconf script will automatically use the $PREFIX environment variable if you have set and exported it.binutils and gcc):
$ gunzip -c avr-libc-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd avr-libc-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
Uisp also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c uisp-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd uisp-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
avrdude is part of the FreeBSD ports system. To install it, simply do the following:
# cd /usr/ports/devel/avrdude # make install
ppi(4) device.configure system, as such:
$ gunzip -c avrdude-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd avrdude-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
Gdb also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ bunzip2 -c gdb-<version>.tar.bz2 | tar xf - $ cd gdb-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr $ make $ make install
avr-gdb, you will probably want to install either simulavr or avarice since avr-gdb needs one of these to run as a a remote target backend.
Simulavr also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c simulavr-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd simulavr-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c avarice-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf - $ cd avarice-<version> $ mkdir obj-avr $ cd obj-avr $ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX $ make $ make install
<hdr_path> with the path to the bfd.h file on your system. Replace <lib_path> with the path to libbfd.a on your system.):$ CPPFLAGS=-I<hdr_path> LDFLAGS=-L<lib_path> ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX