Quick start

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Revision as of 11:48, 13 April 2014 by Fede.tft (talk | contribs)
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To start using Miosix you need a patched version of the GCC compiler to support the Miosix thread model and git to download the kernel sources. Optionally you can also use an IDE to simplify code development, and an in-circuit debugger to speed up bug fixing.

Changes with respect to Miosix 1.x

A word of warning if you are a long-time user of Miosix: please note that in Miosix 2.0 there were significant changes. First of all, Miosix 2.0 uses GCC 4.7.3 and is no longer compatible with the old GCC 4.5.2 used in Miosix 1.x, so you need to upgrade your compiler. Second, the preferred way to install the compiler is through a precompiled installer available for both Linux and Windows. If you want, though, you can still build the compiler from sources. Last, keep in mind that the compiler patches are still a work in progress. When doing a 'git pull' you may need to upgrade the compiler too.

Getting started

This section will guide you through the installation of the minimum requirements to start using Miosix: installing the compiler, and downloading the kernel.

IDE Configuration

The default IDE to develop for Miosix is [Netbeans]. However, it does not come with Miosix support out of the box, so you have to configure it first.

Another alternative is Eclipse, which has the added feature to allow in-circuit debugging directly from the IDE.

TODO: How to set up Eclipse

In-circuit debugger

An in-circuit debugger allows to physically halt the CPU inside a microcontroller, single-step it and view all the variables at any given time. It is a powerful tool to debug software running on a microcontroller. Miosix uses GDB and [openocd] for in-circuit debugging.