Developing tools for STM32MP157

[Sergio Petrovko]

Forgive my ignorance, but could anyone recommend an IDE which can interface with STM32MP157C-DK2 and allow to write, compile, upload and debug both Linux application code and M4 code on the chip?

Something which does not cost around $500 per month would be awesome.

Thanks a lot for your input!

[PatrickF]

Hello,

First you need a PC (Native Linux or Windows+Virtual Machine), see https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/PC_prerequisites.

You could then use STM32CubeMx + SW4STM32 or STM32CubeIDE for free. This tools are able to help you generating Linux device tree and as well are a Cortex-M4 IDE.

You could right now try to develop you first A7 and M4 applications on STM32MP157C-DK2 using this step by step getting started https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/Getting_started/STM32MP1_boards/STM32MP157C-DK2.

We do not propose Linux IDE as this is not the usual way of working. There are many free toolchains and frameworks for Linux development.

[Sergio Petrovko]

Thank you for the quick reply. I've see that getting started article and a hello world example which was done via CLI. What I am looking for is a way to step through the application code which runs on the A7 chip, while A7 communicates with other devices via I2C, SPI etc. For example, I would like to break after a packet received over SPI, and inspect the received data and things of that nature. My application heavily depends on the data received from other hardware, so I cant just develop it on Linux PC, and then upload to the MPU board.

Tools like SW4STM32 + STlink allow me to do exactly that, but only with M4, and not the A7

Am I missing something?

[PatrickF]

I'm not software expert, but my understanding is that you usually do not 'break' the processor execution in a running Linux system (except maybe if you are debugging very specific kernel portion or low level drivers, which is usually not the case when you are working on a system application), so JTAG debugging for Cortex-A7 is, in my opinion, optional (whereas it is the opposite, i.e. almost mandatory, for MCU debug).

Development, cross-compile, Trace and debug is much more remote and SW based (e.g. Linux PC connected over Ethernet on your STM32MP1 target) and using mostly command lines.

Please have a look into https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/Linux_tracing,_monitoring_and_debugging

also https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/Debugging_the_Linux_kernel_using_the_GDB

and more specifically for SPI https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/SPI_overview#How_to_trace_and_debug_the_framework

[Sergio Petrovko]

Just to clarify, I don't need to break the entire CPU, only the user application. Just like debugging windows application using visual studio. OS and other programs keep running while the application under debug can be stopped and stepped through.

[Olivier GALLIEN]

Hi Sergio,

Yes you can break Linux userspace application using gdbserver through ST-Link.

If you really want free GUI maybe gdbgui can suit your need ?

https://wiki.st.com/stm32mpu/wiki/Gdbgui

Olivier

[Sergio Petrovko]

I know that there are many Linux development tools and IDEs out there. I was looking for a recommendations on which one might be a better choice for developing A7 apps for stm32MP157. A tool which would allow to download the code and step through it in 1 click and without opening 10 different windows and running a dozen CLI commands. Something similar to what SW4STM32, Keil, IAR etc allow you to do with M4.

Also would be nice to see some tutorial on setting up some of the most common Linux IDEs such as Netbeans, codeblocks, etc for developing on STM32MP1

[Olivier GALLIEN]

Hi @Sergio Petrovko​ 

For the time being – no IDEs without fees per month. Eg DS-MDK, AC6 SW4Linux

STM32CubeIDE free solution is planned for first quarter of 2020.

Olivier

[koan]

What about use Eclipse and setup it with the STM32 toolchain generated by Yocto/OE?

--

Marco Cavallini | KOAN sas | Bergamo - Italia

embedded software engineering

http://KoanSoftware.com