Re: [avr-libc-dev] newbie question - attiny88 on Ubuntu

[Allan Macdonald]

Hey it's me again.

I'm back at it, trying to get my avr toolchain working under Ubuntu
with ATtiny88 support.  If you go to this thread, you can see some of
the frustrations I am having getting this to work for me:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6952465

If you have any suggestions, tips, help, jokes, anything, I'd be grateful.

Cheers,

Allan


On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 1:19 PM, Weddington, Eric
<address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi Allan,
>
> Answers are interleaved below.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> address@hidden
>> [mailto:address@hidden
>> org] On Behalf Of Allan Macdonald
>> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 8:44 AM
>> To: address@hidden
>> Subject: [avr-libc-dev] newbie question - attiny88 on Ubuntu
>>
>>
>> crc.c:1: error: MCU 'attiny88' supported for assembler only
>>
>> I am a little confused as to why this happens on Linux and not in
>> WinAVR.
>
> You will typically get this message if support for that device is missing in 
> your toolchain build.
>
>> The version of avr-gcc installed on my machine is 4.2.2.
>> This is the version that was available in the repositories that are
>> offered by default.  I got it by going into my Synaptic Package
>> Manager, finding all the avr-related packages such as gcc, gdb,
>> avrdude, etc, and installing them.
>>
>> I don't know what to do or who to ask to fix this.  My apologies if
>> this is the wrong list in which to be asking these questions.  If
>> there is a better list or forum to post this, please let me know.
>>
>> Questions:
>>
>> - What would be the easiest way for me to fix this?
>
> Unfortunately, the easiest way depends on your skill level.
>
>> - Should I download and build the latest tarball for avr-gcc sources?
>
> That would certainly be the best way, though not the easiest if you have 
> never done this before.
>
>> - Is there a pre-compiled binary available somewhere?
>> - Should I be contacting whoever maintains the dell and ubuntu
>> repositories to get them to commit the latest versions of avr-gcc
>> packages?
>
> I'm not familiar enough with ubuntu to know if there are pre-compiled 
> binaries somewhere. Contacting the maintainers is certainly a good idea, 
> though see more below.
>
>>
>> Other questions:
>>
>> Who maintains avr-gcc anyway?  Is it the same people that maintain the
>> AVR-libc project?   Do these go hand-in-hand?
>
> There are 2 official port maintainers for the AVR port: Denis Chertykov, who 
> is not very active; and Anatoly Sokolov, who is very active. There are other 
> people who also work on avr-gcc as well, though not very many (myself 
> included). Yes, it is generally the same people who work on avr-gcc that work 
> on avr-libc. Yes, they kind of go hand-in-hand, in the sense that avr-libc is 
> the Standard C library for the AVR, and so it has to be used with the 
> compiler (and assembler and linker).
>
>> How is this different from the cross-gcc project (crosstool, etc)?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "cross-gcc project", however, I am familiar 
> with crosstool. Crosstool does not have support for building the AVR, though 
> I spoke with Dan Kegel (the author) many years ago about doing it sometime. 
> It never came to fruition.
>
>> How is this different from the WinAVR project?
>
> The WinAVR project is an AVR toolchain distribution that is hosted on 
> Windows, which I manage. Other people manage other distributions. Joerg 
> Wunsch manages the FreeBSD distribution. Other people manage the distribution 
> on Mac OS X. Currently there is no single person managing Linux 
> distributions. There are different people who maintain packages on different 
> Linux distros, though they don't seem to be very active here. And for 
> completeness, it is known that the toolchain can be built on Solaris and 
> NetBSD, though I don't know of any official maintainers.
>
> Something to note: Each release of WinAVR has many outside patches to the 
> toolchain, either to fix bugs, add new features, or (mostly) add support for 
> new devices. This is probably what you have run into: WinAVR has support for 
> a device that is not yet available on your Linux-based AVR toolchain. Joerg 
> Wunsch and I try to keep in sync in terms of what patches to include in our 
> distributions of the toolchain. The people who take care of the Mac OS X 
> distribution base their releases on the WinAVR patches as well (to be 
> bug-for-bug compatible). On the AVR Freaks website (www.avrfreaks.net), there 
> is an AVR GCC Forum with a sticky post that contains a very well maintained 
> build script for Linux, that is also based on the WinAVR patches (both Joerg 
> and I know the person who maintains it). That build script is the first place 
> that we refer to people who want to build their own AVR toolchain on Linux.
>
> It would be nice if the various Linux package maintainers would be more 
> actively involved that way they can stay up to date with the latest patches.
>
> HTH,
> Eric Weddington
>
>