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Cross-Compiling for the Beaglebone Black

This repository shows how to cross-compile a simple Hello World program and run it on a Beaglebone Black. It also shows how to install and setup a TCF agent on the Beaglebone Black for remote debugging with Eclipse.

Prerequisites for cross-compiling

  1. cmake installed
  2. ARM Linux cross compiler installed
  3. Beagle Bone Black sysroot folder mirrored on the host machine, using rsync and scp. See the related chapter for more information.
  4. Optional: tcf-agent running on the BBB for remote debugging with Eclipse. See the related chapter for more information.

Linux

The script named bbb-env-set.sh takes care of some of the steps specified here for convenience. Instructions for an Ubuntu host:

  1. You can download a cross-compile toolchain built with crosstool-ng from here. Alternatively, you can also download the one provided by Linaro from here. Copy the path containin the toolchain binaries, it is going to be required later.

  2. Navigate into the toolchain folder.

    cd <toolchainPath>/bin
pwd

    Copy the path and run the following command to add the tool binary path to the MinGW64 path

    export PATH=$PATH:"<copied path>"

  3. It is assumed the root filesystem is located somewhere on the host machine (see rootfs chapter for more information how to do this). Set in in an environmental variable which CMake can use

    export LINUX_ROOTFS="<pathToRootfs>"

    Note that you can add the commands in step 2 and step 3 to the ~/.bashrc to set the path and the environment variable up permanently.

  4. Build the application using CMake. Run the following commands inside the repository

    mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build . -j
chmod +x hello

  5. Transfer to application to the Beaglebone Black and run it to test it

    scp hello <username>@beaglebone.local:/tmp
ssh <username>@beaglebone.local
cd /tmp
./hello

Windows

There are two options to cross-compile on Windows: Use the native tools and the Unix environment provided by MinGW64 or perform the Linux steps in WSL2. If you want to use WLS2, follow the Linux instructions (not tested yet, but should work). The following instructions show how to cross-compile using MinGW64. It is still recommended to clone the sysroot with Linux tools, using WSL2, because cloning with the MinGW64 can be problematic.

Install MSYS2 first.

Prepare MSYS2 by running the following commands in MinGW64

pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake mingw-w64-x86_64-make rsync

You can also run pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain to install the full build chain with gcc and g++

  1. Install the correct ARM Linux cross-compile toolchain provided by Linaro and unzip it somewhere. Copy the path to the bin folder.

  2. Navigate into the toolchain folder inside MinGW64.

    cd <toolchainPath>/bin
pwd

    Copy the path and run the following command to add the tool binary path to the MinGW64 path

    export PATH=$PATH:"<copied path>"

  3. It is assumed the root filesystem is located somewhere on the host machine (see rootfs chapter for more information how to do this). Set in in an environmental variable which CMake can use

    export LINUX_ROOTFS="<pathToRootfs>"

    Note that you can add the commands in step 2 and step 3 to the ~/.bashrc to set the path and the environment variable up permanently

  4. Build the application using CMake. Run the following commands inside the repository

    mkdir build && cd build
cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles" ..
cmake --build . -j
chmod +x hello

  5. Transfer to application to the Beaglebone Black and run it to test it

    scp hello <username>@beaglebone.local:/tmp
ssh <username>@beaglebone.local
cd /tmp
./hello

Installing the TCF agent on the Beaglebone Black

The TCF agent allows comfortable Eclipse remote debugging and other features like a remote file explorer in Eclipse. The following steps show how to setup the TCF agent on the BBB and add it to the auto-startup applications. The steps are based on this guide

  1. Install required packages on the BBB

    sudo apt-get install git uuid uuid-dev libssl-dev

  2. Clone the repository and perform some preparation steps

    git clone git://git.eclipse.org/gitroot/tcf/org.eclipse.tcf.agent.git
cd org.eclipse.tcf.agent.git/agent

  3. Build the TCF agent

    make

    and then test it by running

    obj/GNU/Linux/arm/Debug/agent –S

  4. Finally install the agent for auto-start with the following steps. And set it up for auto-start.

    cd org.eclipse.tcf.agent/agent
make install
sudo make install INSTALLROOT=
sudo update-rc.d tcf-agent defaults

  5. Restart the BBB and verify the tcf-agent is running with the following command

    systemctl status tcf-agent

Using Eclipse

  1. Install Eclipse for C/C++ with the installer
  2. Install the TCF agent plugin in Eclipse from the releases. Go to Help → Install New Software and use the download page, for example https://download.eclipse.org/tools/tcf/releases/1.6/1.6.2/ to search for the plugin and install it.
  3. Eclipse project files were supplied to get started. You can copy the .cproject and .project files to the system root and then add the repository as an Eclipse project to get started. Only select the root folder check box here. The build system still needs to be generated from command line, but you can build and debug the project conveniently in Eclipse after that.
  4. Set the LINUX_ROOTFS Eclipse variable and the toolchain binary path correctly in the project settings to make full use of the Eclipse indexer.
  5. If the tcf-agent is running on the BBB, you should be able to connect to it using the TCF plugin.
  6. If you are connected, right click on the generated image in the build tree and select Debug As → Remote Application to perform remote debugging

Cloning the root filesystem

You can also download a basic root filesystem with libgpiod installed from here.

Linux Host

Set up a sysroot folder on the local host machine. Make sure the SSH connection to the BBB is working without issues. Then perform the following steps

cd $HOME
mkdir beaglebone
cd beaglebone
mkdir rootfs
cd rootfs
pwd

Store the result of pwd, it is going to be used by rsync later.

Now use rsync to clone the BBB sysroot to the local host machine. You can replace <ip-address> with beaglebone.local to use DNS. Use the rootfs location stored from the previous steps as <rootfs-path>.

rsync -avHAXR --delete-after --info=progress2 --numeric-ids <user_name>@<ip_address>:/{usr,lib} <rootfs_path>

On Linux, it is recommended to repair some symlinks which can be problematic: Navigate to the folder containing the symlinks first:

cd <rootfs_path>/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

You can now use

readlink libpthread.so

which will show an absolute location of a shared library the symlinks points to. This location needs to be converted into a relative path.

Run the following command to create a relative symlinks instead of an absolute ones. The pointed to location might change to check it with readlink first before removing the symlinks:

rm libpthread.so
rm librt.so
ln -s ../../../lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libpthread.so.0 libpthread.so
ln -s ../../../lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/librt.so.1 librt.so

For more information on issues which can occur when cloning the root filesystem, see the troubleshooting section.

Windows Host

This requires MSYS2 installed. All command line steps shown here were performed in the MSYS2 MinGW64 shell (not the default MSYS2, use MinGW64!). Replace <UserName> with respectively. It is recommended to set up aliases in the .bashrc file to allow quick navigation to the fsfw_example repository and to run git config --global core.autocrlf true for git in MinGW64.

Set up a sysroot folder on the local host machine. Make sure the SSH connection to the BBB is working without issues. Then perform the following steps

cd /c/Users/<UserName>
mkdir beaglebone
cd beaglebone
mkdir rootfs
cd rootfs
pwd

Store the result of pwd, it is going to be used by rsync later.

Now use rsync to clone the BBB sysroot to the local host machine. You can replace <ip-address> with beaglebone.local to use DNS. Use the rootfs location stored from the previous steps as <rootfs-path>.

rsync -avHAXR --numeric-ids --info=progress2 <username>@<ip-address>:/{lib,usr} <rootfs-path>

Please note that rsync sometimes does not copy shared libraries or symlinks properly, which might result in errors when cross-compiling and cross-linking. It is recommended to run the following commands in addition to the rsync command on Windows:

scp <user_name>@<ip-address>:/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/{libc.so.6,ld-linux-armhf.so.3,libm.so.6} <rootfs_path>/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf
scp <user_name>@<ip-address>:/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/{libpthread.so,libc.so,librt.so} <rootfs_path>/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf

For more information on issues which can occur when cloning the root filesystem, see the troubleshooting section.