Debian Programming with Eclipse

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DART-MX8M-MINI - Debian Programming with Eclipse

Overview

This guide describes how to use Eclipse to develop and debug applications on the DART-MX8M-MINI.

Create your rootfs with Eclipse debug support

To enable debug support on the target, make sure to have the following packages installed:

• gdbserver
• openssh-sftp-server

Info:

The Eclipse IDE supports gdbserver and tcf-agent; both are servers/agents to enable the debug capabilities on the target.

In this guide, we will focus on Remote Debugging with the Eclipse IDE using gdbserver.

The packages can be installed at runtime or compile time, as shown below:

• Add required packages at runtime
  

Login to your target and run the commands:

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get -y install gdbserver openssh-sftp-server 

Note: The package openssh-sftp-server may possibly already be installed.

• Add required packages at compile time
  

Use the variable 'G_USER_PACKAGES' in the build script to add further packages to your image

For example:

#### user rootfs packages ####
readonly G_USER_PACKAGES=" \
	gdbserver \
	openssh-sftp-server \
	"

File: ~/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/var_make_debian.sh

and build the image, according to the page Debian Build Release.

Please also refer to the page Adding Debian packages if you want to learn more about adding packages to a Debian image.

Setup Host Computer Environment

Please follow the steps below to prepare a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 installation for Eclipse debugging:

Install Dependencies

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get -y install build-essential gdb gdb-multiarch git default-jre

Install Debian Toolchain

To cross-compile your application on the host with the Eclipse IDE following basic components are needed:

• cross compiler (gcc-linaro-6.3.1-2017.05-x86_64_aarch64-linux-gnu)
• target's rootfs (standard includes at /usr/include and libraries at /usr/lib)

Both of them are provided by the Debian build script. Once you went through the Debian Build Release guide you should be able to find:

• The cross compiler at ~/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/toolchain
• And the target's rootfs at ~/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/rootfs

Note: It's highly recommended to keep the host-side used rootfs for compiling/linking consistent with the target rootfs.

Download Eclipse

Download Eclipse 2021-06 from here: https://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/2021-06/R/eclipse-cpp-2021-06-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz
Run the following command to unpack and install the downloaded Eclipse IDE tarball into a clean directory using the default name eclipse:

$ cd ~
$ tar -xf ~/Downloads/eclipse-cpp-2021-06-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

Create and run a simple application

Run the Eclipse IDE

Run the Eclipse IDE with the following commands:

$ cd eclipse
$ ./eclipse

Select a new workspace (you can just click OK).

Create the Project

You can create different types of projects: C Managed Build, CMake, Meson, or Makefile. This section describes how to create "C Managed Build" projects from within the Eclipse IDE. To create a new project from a "Hello World" template and then display the source code, follow these steps:

• File->New->C/C++ Project
• Select C Managed Build and click Next.
• Enter a name for the project under the Project name field. Do not use hyphens as part of the name.
• Select Hello World ANSI C Project.
• Select Cross GCC toolchain

• Click Next.
• Add information in the Author field and make sure the License field is correct and click Next.
• Accept the default Debug/Release configurations and click Next.
• Enter aarch64-linux-gnu- under Cross compiler prefix
• Enter ${HOME}/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/toolchain/gcc-linaro-6.3.1-2017.05-x86_64_aarch64-linux-gnu/bin under Cross compiler path

• Click "Finish".
• Click on "Workbench".
• You should now be in the C/C++ perspective. The left-hand navigation pane shows your project. You can display your source by double clicking the project's source file.

Configure Cross Compiler

The sysroot flag must be added to the linker and C/C++ compilers within Eclipse:

• Right click on the project and select Properties
• Under C/C++ Build, select Settings

• Add the following include path to Cross GCC Compiler->Includes

${HOME}/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/rootfs/usr/include

C/C++ Build -> Settings -> Cross GCC Compiler -> Includes

• Append the following to Cross GCC Compiler -> Miscellaneous -> Other Flags:

--sysroot=${HOME}/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/rootfs

C/C++ Build -> Settings -> Cross GCC Compiler -> Miscellaneous

• Append the following to Cross GCC Linker -> Miscellaneous -> Other Flags:

--sysroot=${HOME}/debian_imx8mm-var-dart/rootfs

C/C++ Build -> Settings -> Cross GCC Linker -> Miscellaneous

Configure Remote Debugging

The target should be connected to the network via Ethernet or WIFI.
Use the "ifconfig" command on the target to get its IP address.
From Eclipse:

• Click Run->Debug Configurations...
• Double click on C/C++ Remote Application.
• In the Main tab, section C/C++ Application, type Debug/hello-world.
• Next, click on New... to create a new connection.

• Select SSH for the connection type and click OK.
• Enter the Target IP Address.
• Enter root for the user.
• Change to "Password based authentication" and enter password 'root'.
• Click Finish
• Type "/root/hello-world" in the Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++ Application field
• Click on the Debugger tab
• Enter aarch64-linux-gnu-gdb in the GDB debugger field

• Click Apply and Close to finish configuring the debugger

Remote debug

Follow the below steps to remotely debug your application on the DART-MX8M-MINI.

• Use the keyboard shortcut ctrl-b to rebuild the application.
• Click the bug icon in the toolbar and select "hello-world debug" (or whichever name you supplied in the previous step)
• Follow the prompt to switch to the Debug perspective

You can now run and debug your program via eclipse. The actual program execution is done on the target, and the output is seen on the Remote Shell on Eclipse.