Cross GCC making problems

[Joel Sherrill]

On Tue, 14 Oct 1997, David Vandewalle wrote:

> I am just curious, are all (or most) of these little gnu tool kit bugs 
> and nuances documented any where? (ie. web site or something)

AFAIK there is no central site discussing bugs and possible fixes.  The
crossgcc mailing list has an archive and most of the cross embedded
problems end up being discussed there.  I an on the developers' lists
for the many gnu tools and try to watch for problems which might impact
RTEMS users.  I make notes fo them and try to post fixes when people run
into them.

Since it seemed like this might help, I have tried to put together a list
of various free packages and the state of their RTEMS support.

binutils 2.8.1 is in great shape for RTEMS users.  The only problem I know
of is a cpu32 instruction not being allowed.  

gcc 2.7.2.x has no RTEMS support.  It has some known problems and (I hope)
is replaced soon.

testgcc (ftp://vger.rutgers.edu:/pub/gcc is the FSF gcc snapshot location.
This includes RTEMS support and a lot of fixes.  But they are snapshots.
The C++ support is better than in gcc 2.7.2.x

egcs (http://www.cygnus.com/egcs) is the "Experimental/Enhanced GNU
Compiler System".  Snapshots include multi-language support --
C/C++/FORTRAN including the libio and libstdc++ libraries.  RTEMS support
is great in these.  I like this tree because it is the "future oriented"
one.  It is more open to accepting new code and more advanced algorithms.
The plan of the egcs developers is that this tree be a noticeable
improvement over the gcc 2.x series.  

gdb support is open for discussion and volunteers. :)

gnat 3.10p has rtems configuration files in it (with one minor flaw) but
the cross support for the support tools is not in this release.  You must
use a testgcc snapshot with this.

RTEMS support for the free Java Virtual Machine  -- Kaffe -- is in its
early stages.  The people involved in this are on the list and can comment
if they would like to say more.

Believe it or not, one RTEMS user has actually worked to insure that
ncurses can be used in cross embedded environments.  He can comment more
on this effort.

There are almost always a number of interesting RTEMS projects underway or
at least on the wishlist :) at any given time.  An example of this type of
project would be to add more networking client services to RTEMS.  There
are also a number of projects not directly related to RTEMS we would like
to see come to fruition.  An example of a "not pure RTEMS"  project would
be to address the lack of a freely available CPU simulator for the m68k
family which is integrated with gdb and suitable for use in testing
embedded systems. 

The RTEMS developers are very open minded about what things are needed in
RTEMS and try to listen to suggestions and incorporate them.  I try to act
as a coordinator on whatever efforts people are working on. 

--joel
Joel Sherrill                    Director of Research & Development
joel at OARcorp.com                 On-Line Applications Research
Ask me about RTEMS: a free RTOS  Huntsville AL 35805
   Support Available             (205) 722-9985