Showing posts with label tutorial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tutorial. Show all posts

Saturday, August 31, 2013

OpenElec with support for eGalax touch screen

Hi!

Lately I have tested OpenElec for Raspberry PI and found out that it is very very fast, very very small and also it has some great addons(wifi, bluetooth and more).
Speed/size features on an 512MB RaspberryPI:
  - a complete boot is less than 25 seconds
  - cpu is around 30% load
  - memory used is 32%
  - total system size is less than 300MB

Edit. You can download my build from here(contains eGalax module and XBMC patches).
Username is root and password is openelec. The touch screen calibration file should be put in /storage/touchscreen_axes_calib.

Next, I will guide you through the instructions for building(cross compile) latest OpenElec  for Raspberry PI with touch screen support.
For this tutorial let's assume that you have a Linux machine where you will work.

1. Get the latest OpenElec.
git clone git://github.com/OpenELEC/OpenELEC.tv.git

2. Add kernel touch screen module support.
Open the file OpenELEC.tv/projects/RPI/linux/linux.arm.conf and search for "CONFIG_INPUT_TOUCHSCREEN". Replace the whole text line with the following lines:
CONFIG_INPUT_TOUCHSCREEN=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_COMPOSITE=y
CONFIG_TOUCHSCREEN_USB_EGALAX=y
3. Fix ppl version in OpenElec.
Open the file OpenELEC.tv/packages/toolchain/math/ppl/meta and change PKG_VERSION from "1.1pre9" to "1.1pre10"

4. Put touch screen calibration file into the system.
Navigate to folder OpenELEC.tv/projects/RPI/ and create the file usr/share/eGalaxCalibration/touchscreen_axes_calib. This file should have the following contents:
calib_x_d=-21;calib_x_fact=0.658097686;calib_y_d=-50;calib_y_fact=0.408626561;swap_axes=0;click_confines=8
To set up these values please visit this post(at section 4).
This step is not needed any more, because you can use the calibration addon to calibrate your screen.
Get the calibration addon from my Downloads folder and put it in /storage/.xbmc/addons/

5. Put XBMC 12.3 patch.
Get my latest patches from here and put them in the folder OpenELEC.tv/packages/mediacenter/xbmc/patches/

6. Build OpenElec.
Navigate to OpenElec folder and type:
PROJECT=RPi ARCH=arm make -j3
-j3 option is to use parallel build(if you have more than one cpu's set this number as nb_cpus+1). This option will speed up the build process.
The build process will take couple of hours, but you have to come back once(in the first 10 minutes) and press ENTER for the kernel touch screen modifications to be approved.

7. Install or Update your OpenElec card.
Go to OpenElec build instructions page for RPI and follow the "Install instructions" chapter.

Have fun!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Raspberry PI, Raspbian, XBMC and eGalax 7 inch touchscreen

Hello!

I have spent some time lately trying to find a solution to get my 7 inch eGalax touchscreen to work with  Raspbian(Debian Wheezy) in XBMC 12 Frodo and finally got it working as I wanted.

My Setup
  • Raspberry PI model B: ~30$
  • 7 inch display with touchscreen for car rear view camera, from eBay(touchscreen is connected to one USB port): 80$
  • HDMI male to HDMI male connector(from eBay): <2$
  • 4GB SDHC class 4 card
  • 12V(500mA) AC to DC adapter for powering the display
  • 5V(1A) microUSB AC to DC converter for powering the PI
  • USB keyboard


Edit:  Download the latest image from the top right corner of this blog(username: pi, password: a).

Here is what you need to do in order to have a system with Raspberry PI, Raspbian OS and XBMC 12 Frodo stable with eGalax touchscreen working correctly(which means axes calibrated and click working with just one tap&release action):


1. Get latest Raspbian image from here and flash it to an SD card.

2. Build your own kernel with eGalax touchscreen support, like in this post(you will only need to replace kernel.img file and /lib/modules and /lib/firmware folders on the SD card).

3. Build XBMC 12 on Raspberry PI using this tutorial.
Note: After downloading XBMC archive, get this archive and unpack it anywhere.
Apply patches to xbmc files:
cd <patches_folder>
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/linux/LinuxInputDevices.cpp < LinuxInputDevices_cpp.patch
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/MouseStat.cpp < MouseStat_cpp.patch
patch -p1 <path_to_xbmc>/xbmc/input/MouseStat.h < MouseStat_h.patch
4. Touchscreen calibration.
Create a new file /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib on Raspberry PI. It will contain four values for the axes calibration and one value for swapping axes.
The simplest way to swap axes is to switch the four wires cable plug's orientation which comes from the touchscreen to the touch controller.

Here is how the calibration was done.

the original behavior(no calibration)

In the picture above, we see that "touch panel values frame" differs from "touch panel physical size frame". When we are pressing the touch we are moving in the "touch panel physical size frame" but when the touch screen is not calibrated the arrow from XBMC is in another place.
  • "touch panel physical size frame" is the screen starting from (0,0) on the left top corner and going to (width, height) in the right bottom corner.
  • "touch panel values frame" is the frame which contains all the number the touch controller is giving.
We see that these frames differs a lot. Our main scope is to overlap the "touch panel values frame" to the "touch panel physical size frame".

In order to do this we need to do three steps(the third one is done in software):
a. Scale the value read from the touch driver x and y) in order to fit 0->width range and respectively 0->height range of the "touch panel physical size frame" the scale value for x axis is:
                       "touch panel physical size frame" width
calib_x_fact = -------------------------------------------------
                            "touch panel values frame" width


                       "touch panel physical size frame" height
calib_y_fact = -------------------------------------------------
                            "touch panel values frame" height

"touch panel values frame" width and height are coming from your XBMC resolution(I have width=1280 and height=720).
"touch panel physical size frame" width and height are a little more trickier to find but nothing hard. In step 2 above, you have calibrated the touchscreen in XFCE. You got some values returned by xinput_calibrator, something like:
Section "InputClass"
    Identifier   "calibration"
    MatchProduct    "eGalax Inc. USB TouchController"
    Option    "Calibration"    "1977 32 1893 131"
EndSection
In my case,
"touch panel physical size frame" width is 1977 - 32 = 1945
"touch panel physical size frame" height is 1893 - 131 = 1762
Now, compute the values and put them in /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib file

b. Translate the "touch panel values frame" to the left and up, to match "touch panel physical size frame".
I didn't find a logical method to do this, because we don't know exactly "where is" the "touch panel values frame", so, in order to find calib_x_d and calib_y_d you have to first set them both to zero and then start XBMC. Now, put some sharp pointer on the screen and observe the distances between the cursor on the screen and your pointer's position. Try to approximate these x and y deviations(measured in pixels) and put them in the /home/pi/touchscreen_axes_calib file.

c. Revert direction of axes. This is done in the software(from patches).

5. Math behind.
To accomplish these transformations the following formula was implemented in the file
xbmc/input/linux/LinuxInputDevices.cpp
pointer.x = value_read.x * calib_x_fact + calib_x_d;
pointer.y = value_read.y * calib_y_fact + calib_y_d;

After I have successfully calibrated the touchscreen I have discovered that single click was not possible from the touchscreen, just double click. After digging through the code, I have found that this was caused by drag action which was triggered because the previous values of the touch were far(more than 5 pixels) from a new press. For example, at the start of the program, cursor is set at 0,0 coordinates; if user is trying to press a button, let's say at 100, 300, the program(XBMC) will calculate the distance between these two points and will find out that this is greater than 5.
Pythagorean theory:
(100-0)x(100-0) + (300 - 0)x(300-0) is greater than 5x5 XBMC will treat this as a drag event.
This drag issue is not caused when you double click, because the previous point in the second click action is very close to the second click point. This also works for mouses, because the previous value of the pointer is always very close to the new value of the pointer(because mouse's pointer drags on the screen and it doesn't jump - so each new value is very close to the previous one).

I have developed an algorithm to avoid this issue:
When the user is pressing the screen(x,y), the touch values are being set to (screen_width+1, screen_height+1 -> outside of the visible screen) just at the first event read(which is BTN_TOUCH PRESS).
After this event, the program will receive multiple X and Y absolute values events. The first two events, one for X and one for Y are used to set the previous X value, respectively previous Y value to the current X respective current Y values. And from now on distance is measured and this is preventing no unwanted drag action.
The user's finger/pointer will not stay at a single point, because the touchscreen's lack of precision, so it will move around 5-6 pixels in x and y directions.
I have also set the click distance to 7. You can change this by changing click_confines value in xbmc/input/MouseStat.h. Originally it was set to 5, but this is not very good for touch screens(I had to click with a sharp pointer and with my nail always, but with a value of 7 I can click with my finger with a slight touch -> really nice).

Enjoy!

Friday, February 22, 2013

Build XBMC Frodo from source in Raspbian on Raspberry PI

Hi!

After struggling couple of days in finding the best way to build XBMC on Raspberry PI I have finally got a working solution(haven't discovered how I can cross-compile it, which would be the best choice).
This takes about 15 hours, on my Raspberry PI model B, but the good news is that 'make' takes about 12 hours, so you don't need to watch it, just come from time to time to see if it is working. Besides the build messages displayed on screen you have the whole logs for rbp_depends, configure, make and make install steps. If anything goes wrong you can investigate these files(the last one reached) and search for the first error
log_1_rbp_depends.log
log_2_configure.log
log_3_make.log
log_4_make_install.log
This tutorial is for Linux Host Machine but it can be easily adapted to any other OS.
Let's get this started!

1. Get the latest Raspbian Wheezy image from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads and put it on an SD card:
You have couple of possibilities to do this. In Linux you can use:
sudo dd bs=1M if=raspbian_wheezy_image_path of=/dev/sd_card_path
2. Get XBMC 12 source code from http://xbmc.org/download/. On the Source Code section, download the zip file from where it says: "Stable release sources are available here".
If you get the code from git it will probably get an unstable version, which is the latest code. When I have build from source I have got XBMC 13 alpha 1 which worked, but no addon was working.
Transfer xbmc folder to your /home/pi/ directory or wherever you like.
Now you can plug the card in Raspberry PI and follow the next steps.

Note. The easiest way to do this is via ssh(first, enable it using sudo raspi-config menu), from a computer. Just connect in Terminal using:
ssh pi@x.x.x.x
where x.x.x.x is the ip address of your device. You can get the ip address by typing ifconfig. Then you just copy/paste the commands into Terminal.

3. Set minimum amount of video memory and create a swap partition:
sudo raspi-config
Here you should expand_rootfs, disable overscan, configure_keyboard, change_pass, change_timezone and enable ssh. Select memory_split and enter 16 then restart.
Now, to create a swap partition, use the following:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/pi/swapfile1 bs=1024 count=204800
sudo mkswap /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo chown root:root /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo chmod 0600 /home/pi/swapfile1
sudo swapon /home/pi/swapfile1
The swap file is needed as extra memory for the compiler. This will prevent you from getting errors like:
gcc: internal compiler error: Killed (program cc1)

4. Update the system and install some dependencies:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install autotools-dev comerr-dev dpkg-dev libalsaplayer-dev libapt-pkg-dev:armhf libasound2-dev libass-dev:armhf libatk1.0-dev libavahi-client-dev libavahi-common-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libbison-dev:armhf libbluray-dev:armhf libboost1.49-dev \
    libbz2-dev:armhf libc-dev-bin libc6-dev:armhf libcaca-dev libcairo2-dev libcdio-dev libclalsadrv-dev libcrypto++-dev libcups2-dev libcurl3-gnutls-dev \
    libdbus-1-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libdirectfb-dev libdrm-dev libegl1-mesa-dev libelf-dev libenca-dev libept-dev libevent-dev libexpat1-dev libflac-dev:armhf \
    libfontconfig1-dev libfreetype6-dev libfribidi-dev libgconf2-dev libgcrypt11-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
    libglew-dev:armhf libglewmx-dev:armhf libglib2.0-dev libglu1-mesa-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgnutls-dev libgpg-error-dev libgtk2.0-dev libhal-dev \
    libhunspell-dev:armhf libice-dev:armhf libicu-dev libidn11-dev libiso9660-dev libjasper-dev libjbig-dev:armhf libjconv-dev libjpeg8-dev:armhf libkrb5-dev \
    libldap2-dev:armhf libltdl-dev:armhf liblzo2-dev libmad0-dev libmicrohttpd-dev libmodplug-dev libmp3lame-dev:armhf libmpeg2-4-dev libmysqlclient-dev \
    libncurses5-dev libnspr4-dev libnss3-dev libogg-dev:armhf libopenal-dev:armhf libp11-kit-dev libpam0g-dev:armhf libpango1.0-dev libpcre++-dev libpcre3-dev \
    libpixman-1-dev libpng12-dev libprotobuf-dev libpthread-stubs0-dev:armhf libpulse-dev:armhf librtmp-dev libsamplerate0-dev:armhf \
    libsdl-image1.2-dev:armhf libsdl1.2-dev libslang2-dev:armhf libsm-dev:armhf libsmbclient-dev:armhf libspeex-dev:armhf \
    libsqlite3-dev libssh-dev libssh2-1-dev libssl-dev libstdc++6-4.6-dev libtagcoll2-dev libtasn1-3-dev libtiff4-dev libtinfo-dev:armhf libtinyxml-dev \
    libts-dev:armhf libudev-dev libv8-dev libva-dev:armhf libvdpau-dev:armhf libvorbis-dev:armhf libvpx-dev:armhf libwebp-dev:armhf libwibble-dev \
    libx11-dev:armhf libx11-xcb-dev libxapian-dev libxau-dev:armhf libxcb-glx0-dev:armhf libxcb-render0-dev:armhf libxcb-shm0-dev:armhf \
    libxcb1-dev:armhf libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev:armhf libxdamage-dev libxdmcp-dev:armhf libxext-dev:armhf libxfixes-dev libxft-dev libxi-dev \
    libxinerama-dev:armhf libxml2-dev:armhf libxmu-dev:armhf libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev:armhf libxslt1-dev libxss-dev:armhf libxt-dev:armhf \
    libxtst-dev:armhf libxxf86vm-dev libyajl-dev libzip-dev linux-libc-dev:armhf lzma-dev mesa-common-dev python-dev python2.7-dev x11proto-composite-dev \
    x11proto-core-dev x11proto-damage-dev x11proto-dri2-dev x11proto-fixes-dev x11proto-gl-dev x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-randr-dev \
    x11proto-record-dev x11proto-render-dev x11proto-scrnsaver-dev x11proto-xext-dev x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev x11proto-xinerama-dev xtrans-dev \
    libnfs-dev libplist-dev avahi-daemon zlib1g-dev:armhf swig java-package libafpclient-dev liblockdev1-dev autoconf automake libtool gcc udev openjdk-6-jre \
    cmake g++ libudev-dev build-essential autoconf ccache gawk gperf mesa-utils zip unzip curl
This will take some time depending on your internet speed.

5. Copy libraries headers and create some symlinks for libraries:
sudo cp -R /opt/vc/include/* /usr/include
sudo cp /opt/vc/include/interface/vcos/pthreads/* /usr/include/interface/vcos
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/libEGL.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL.so.1
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL_static.a /usr/lib/libEGL_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libEGL_static.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libEGL_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/libGLESv2.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2.so.2
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2_static.a /usr/lib/libGLESv2_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libGLESv2_static.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLESv2_static.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libbcm_host.so /usr/lib/libbcm_host.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libbcm_host.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libbcm_host.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.a /usr/lib/libvchiq_arm.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvchiq_arm.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.so /usr/lib/libvchiq_arm.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvchiq_arm.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvchiq_arm.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.a /usr/lib/libvcos.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.a /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvcos.a
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.so /usr/lib/libvcos.so
sudo ln -fs /opt/vc/lib/libvcos.so /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libvcos.so
There is a problem when compiling, with the file /usr/include/interface/vmcs_host/vcgencmd.h which includes the wrong vchost_config.h, so I have created a command to put the right inclusion:
sudo sed -i 's/#include "vchost_config.h"/#include "linux\/vchost_config.h"/' /usr/include/interface/vmcs_host/vcgencmd.h
6. Install taglib, libcec and libshairport.
cd <pah_to_xbmc_dir>
make -C lib/taglib
sudo make -C lib/taglib install
cd <any_directory>
git clone --depth 5 https://github.com/Pulse-Eight/libcec.git
cd libcec
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd <path_to_xbmc_dir>
make -C lib/libshairport
sudo make -C lib/libshairport install
7. Configure and compile XBMC
cd <path_to_xbmc_dir>
export TARGET_SUBARCH="armv6zk"
export TARGET_CPU="arm1176jzf-s"
export TARGET_FLOAT="hard"
export TARGET_FPU="vfp"
export TARGET_FPU_FLAGS="-mfloat-abi=$TARGET_FLOAT -mfpu=$TARGET_FPU"
export TARGET_EXTRA_FLAGS="-Wno-psabi -Wa,-mno-warn-deprecated"
export TARGET_COPT="-Wall -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -O3 -fexcess-precision=fast -ffast-math  -fgnu89-inline"
export TARGET_LOPT="-s -Wl,--as-needed"
export CFLAGS="-march=$TARGET_SUBARCH -mcpu=$TARGET_CPU $TARGET_FPU_FLAGS -mabi=aapcs-linux $TARGET_COPT $TARGET_EXTRA_FLAGS"
export CXXFLAGS="$CFLAGS"
export LDFLAGS="-march=$TARGET_SUBARCH -mtune=$TARGET_CPU $TARGET_LOPT"
Fix some errors:
sed -i 's/USE_BUILDROOT=1/USE_BUILDROOT=0/' tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh
sed -i 's/TOOLCHAIN=\/usr\/local\/bcm-gcc/TOOLCHAIN=\/usr/' tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh
Run:
sudo sh tools/rbp/setup-sdk.sh
Fix other errors:
sed -i 's/cd $(SOURCE); $(CONFIGURE)/#cd $(SOURCE); $(CONFIGURE)/' tools/rbp/depends/xbmc/Makefile
Run:
make -C tools/rbp/depends/xbmc/ 2>&1 | tee log_1_rbp_depends.log
Configure:
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --build=arm-linux-gnueabihf \
            --host=arm-linux-gnueabihf --localstatedir=/var/lib \
            --with-platform=raspberry-pi --disable-gl --enable-gles \
            --disable-x11 --disable-sdl --enable-ccache --enable-optimizations \
            --disable-external-libraries --disable-goom --disable-hal \
            --disable-pulse --disable-vaapi --disable-vdpau --disable-xrandr \
            --enable-airplay --disable-alsa --enable-avahi --enable-libbluray \
            --enable-dvdcss --disable-debug --disable-joystick --disable-mid \
            --enable-nfs --disable-profiling --disable-projectm --enable-rsxs \
            --enable-rtmp --disable-vaapi --disable-vdadecoder \
            --disable-external-ffmpeg --enable-optical-drive \
            --enable-player=omxplayer 2>&1 | tee log_2_configure.log
After configuration completes, please run he following command:
sed -i 's/ifeq (1,1)/ifeq (0,1)/' tools/TexturePacker/Makefile
Compile(this will take about 12 hours):
make 2>&1 | tee log_3_make.log
8. Install XBMC 12 in Raspbian.
sudo make install 2>&1 | tee log_4_make_install.log
After this step you have to run raspi-config again and to set video memory to 128 and then restart. Now you should be able to run XBMC using
/usr/local/lib/xbmc/xbmc.bin
Note: If you are running via xbmc command, or from XFCE menu->Multimedia->XBMC it will not start. The same command can be used to run XBMC from terminal or from XFCE interface.
In addition you can also install PVR Addons and XVDR addon(but this is not necessary):
cd <any_directory>
git clone --depth 5 git://github.com/opdenkamp/xbmc-pvr-addons.git
cd xbmc-pvr-addons/
./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-addons-with-dependencies
sudo make install
cd <any_directory>
git clone git://github.com/pipelka/xbmc-addon-xvdr.git
cd xbmc-addon-xvdr
sh autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
sudo make install
Note
If you want to modify sources after the compilation is completed, you just have to modify them and then run make again, which will build only the affected parts(couple of minutes), but remember to keep the video memory at maximum 32MB when you are building, and also keep the swap partition.

Many thanks to:
  • XBIAN forums 
  • http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianXBMC (mpthompson)

Saturday, December 29, 2012

STM32F3 Discovery on Windows with Eclipse and OpenOCD

Hi!

Because of a lot of requests, I have decided to make the Windows version of the tutorial for setting up STM32F3-Discovery board, with free tools.

First, download ST-LINK V2 driver from here. Open the archive and install what is in it.
Then plug the device and let the driver install.
Now, get the latest OpenOCD installer from here and extract it somewhere. Copy <openocd_path>\scripts\board\stm32f3discovery.cfg to <openocd_path>\bin folder
Now you should be able to connect to the board in Command Prompt like this:
D:\embedded\openocd-0.7.0-dev-121112115725\bin>openocd-0.7.0-dev-121112115725.ex
e -f stm32f3discovery.cfg
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.7.0-dev-00079-g08ddb19 (2012-11-12-17:14)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
        http://openocd.sourceforge.net/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
adapter speed: 1000 kHz
srst_only separate srst_nogate srst_open_drain
Info : clock speed 1000 kHz
Info : stm32f3x.cpu: hardware has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints
Now close the Command Prompt.

Download latest Eclipse.
Go to Eclipse download page and download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ developers. Extract it and start eclipse.exe. Go to Workbench.

Set up Eclipse.
Go to Help->Install New Software, select All Available Sites in Work With dropdown list. Enter "GDB Hardware Debugging" in the search box and install the package. Download Arm Eclipse Plugin from here and then go to Help->Install New Software in Eclipse. Click Add and then click archive and select the previous downloaded file. Then select the packet and install it.

Install GCC Arm Embedded toolchain from here.

Now we need some Linux tools like make and rm for Windows. Download Cygwin from here. Select whichever mirror you want. Search for "make" and select the binary from Devel dropdown. Click next and wait for it to install.
Now, download this project and import it in Eclipse Workspace. Right click project and select  Properties->C/C++ Build->Environment. Here, check if PATH variable has link to toolchain and to Cygwin binaries folders. Here, you can add <gcc-arm-none-eabi-4_6-2012q4/arm-none-eabi/include> path for the Eclipse IDE to find some headers like stdint.h.
If everything  was installed correctly you should be able to clean the project and to build it.

With the project selected, click Run->External Tools->External Tools Configurations and select from the left the configuration named OpenOCD(win). Check if the path for OpenOCD at top is correct.
Now, click Run.

After this, click Run->Debug Configurations and select from the left Navigation-debug. In the Debugger tab check if the arm-none-eabi-gdb.exe path is correct. Now click Debug and you should see the Debug Window from Eclipse and the Program counter pointing at the first instruction from main().

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

STM32F3-Discovery Usart with printf

Hi,

The next step after setting up the Development Environment for STM32F3-Discovery was to communicate with computer via serial port.
I have added usart support to my board using USART2 module, which had TX connected to PA2 pin and RX to PA3 pin(both with alternate function set to 7).

The next step was to connect the pins to PC serial port. I have used a MAX3232 module(note that you need a chip with 3.3V support).

After using printf function I have noticed that linker asks for some functions like _write which are used internally. I have added a file newlib_subs.c to implement these function.

You can download the example project from here.
The settings for usart communication are:
baudrate: 115200
parity: none
data bits: 8
stop bits: 1
flow control: none

If you want to use interrupts to read from USART you can use the code from here.

You can check my project via svn from my repository using:
svn checkout http://andrei-development.googlecode.com/svn/branches/dev/stm32f3-discovery


Saturday, November 17, 2012

STM32F3 Discovery + Eclipse + OpenOCD

Hi,

ST launched in September a very interesting development board(STM32F3-Discovery). It is a very cheap one(I have got myself one for ~10$). It has a debugger integrated(STLINK) and also some great sensors:
- ST MEMS LSM303DLHC, which contains 3 axis accelerometer(to measure acceleration intensity on each axis) and 3 axis magnetometer(to measure angles to a fixed point - the Earth's magnetic North)
- ST MEMS L3GD20, which has 3 axis gyrometer(to measure rotation speed)
This board is very good for automated pilot controller projects.

After unpacking the board I have found that it was supported just by commercial software and tools. As I am an opensource kind of guy I have struggled myself some time to get this working with Eclipse, OpenOCD and a free toolchain, on Linux.
I have used Ubuntu, but I think the process is the same on every distribution. Also, with little adjustments it can work on Windows.

Here are some steps, that you have to follow to get the led blinking example to work:
1. Install Java Runtime Environment. Here are some steps for Ubuntu:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

2. Install Eclipse. Get Eclipse IDE from here (grab the Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers) and unpack it somewhere

3. Install GDB Hardware Debugging. Open Eclipse go to Help->Install New Software and then search for GDB Hardware Debugging and install it.

   Install GNU ARM Eclipse plugin. Get it from here and install it from Help->Install New Software->Add->Archive and select the downloaded .zip file.

4. Install some dependencies. Paste following text in Terminal:
sudo apt-get install git zlib1g-dev libtool flex bison libgmp3-dev libmpfr-dev libncurses5-dev libmpc-dev autoconf texinfo build-essential libftdi-dev libusb-1.0.0-dev

5. Install OpenOCD(version>0.6.1). Get it from here and unpack it. Then, navigate to the extracted folder and type in Terminal:
./configure --enable-maintainer-mode --enable-stlink 
make 
sudo make install

6. Add rule for Stlink to be accessed without sudo. Type in Terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-stlink.rules
Paste the following text:
ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3748", MODE="0666"
Type in Terminal:
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
Now, with the board connected to PC you can enter  in Terminal:
openocd -f /usr/local/share/openocd/scripts/board/stm32f3discovery.cfg
The following text should appear:
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.6.1 (2012-10-29-22:02)
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
    http://openocd.sourceforge.net/doc/doxygen/bugs.html
adapter speed: 1000 kHz
srst_only separate srst_nogate srst_open_drain
Info : clock speed 1000 kHz
Info : stm32f3x.cpu: hardware has 6 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints
You can close the Terminal now.

7. Install toolchain.  You can use Codesourcery toolchain, like described in this step, or you can use GCC Arm Embedded toolchain(from here) which has support for hardware floating point unit and which is free and it is easier to install.
For Codesourcery follow the next steps:
Go to Codesourcery and download IA32 GNU/Linux Installer. To install it open the Terminal and navigate to the folder where it is downloaded. Type:
chmod a+x arm-2012.03-56-arm-none-eabi.bin 
./arm-2012.03-56-arm-none-eabi.bin
Then select next at every step. 

8. Download sample project stm32f3.tar.gz file and unpack it.

9. Open the project in Eclipse. Open Eclipse and go to Workbench. Click File->Import and then select General->Existing Projects into Workspace. Select the downloaded project and click finish.
This is a makefile project, so you have to edit makefile if you want to change some project settings. The frst thing you should do is open the Makefile file and check at the very beginning if the toolchain path is correct. This should be like:
TC = <path_to_toolchain>/arm-none-eabi
Now you can build. right click on project name and select build. The correct output is in the Console tab from Eclipse(ignore the warnings and errors from Problems tab).

10. Debugging. After the project was builded correctly select Run->External Tools->External Tools Configuration. Select OpenOCD(restart) in the left tab and click run.
Now, right click project and select Debug as->Debug Configuration and then
select in the left stm32f3-debug and then click Debug.
Note: If you want to add more source files you can add them in the src folder. New headers should be added into hdr folder. If you want to add another folder you have to specify it like the LIB_SRCS in the Makefile and also create LIB_OBJS like variable in the Makefile.

Happy free coding and debugging! :-)