Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Howto setup Eclipse to build and flash Spark-Core firmware

These instructions are based on "STEP 6: MAKE IT SWEETER!" in this blog post.

My environment is Windows 7 32-bit.

It is assumed you have already created a working command line firmware build environment as described here.

Set your user PATH variable to contain the ARM tools, make and dfu-util, it should look something like the following:

C:\Apps\spark\GNU Tools ARM Embedded\4.8 2013q4\bin;
C:\Apps\spark\GnuWin32\bin;
C:\Apps\spark\dfu-util-0.7-binaries\win32-mingw32

Make sure the ARM path points to the bin directory under arm-none-eabi and that there are no brackets in the path.

Download and install Eclipse Kepler CPP and start it.

Import each of the three firmware projects in Eclipse using
Import > Existing Code as Makefile Project





















Select GNU Autotools as Toolchain:






















For the core-firmware project only, from the project contextual menu select:
Make Target > Build…
Add target “all”
Add target “clean”





















For the core-firmware project only, from the project contextual menu select
Properties > C/C++ Build 
Within the Builder Settings tab set the Build-Directory to
${workspace_loc:/core-firmware}/build















Within the Environment subsection add a PATH variable pointing at your system environment path:
















For the core-firmware project only, from the project contextual menu select
Project > Properties > C/C++ General > Paths and Symbols >Includes > GNU C++
And add arm-none-eabi\include subfolder










Add an external run configuration for dfu-util, so that it can be run from within Eclipse:
Run -> External Tools -> External Tools Configurations...

















Open application.cpp from core-firmware if you see compile errors, from the project contextual menu try: Index -> Rebuild

Friday, June 7, 2013

Another cool Arduino compatible WiFi capable board on KickStarter for a reasonable price. The DigiX has an Atmel Cortex M3 CPU

Friday, May 17, 2013

Looking forward to getting one of these Spark Core modules in September, should be good for my battery operated weather station project, as its going to support the low power modes of both the ARM Cortex M3 and CC3000 WiFi chips.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Installing Apache2 on Ubuntu 11.04 in VirtualBox

Install with:

sudo apt-get install apache2

Setup port forwarding so that Apache can be accessed from the host:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" modifyvm "Ubuntu-11.04" --natpf1 "apache,tcp,,8080,,80"

Then from the host access:

http://localhost:8080/

Installing Java on Ubuntu 11.04

I followed the instructions here:

http://oracamp.com/installing-java-ubuntu-1104-natty-narwhal

java -version
java version "1.6.0_24"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_24-b07)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 19.1-b02, mixed mode, sharing)

Installing Oracle XE on Ubuntu 11.04 Desktop in VirtualBox

Download Oracle XE (oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb) from:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/database/express-edition/downloads/102xelinsoft-102048.html

Make sure you have 1GB of swap, or add more as described here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

then:

wget -c http://oss.oracle.com/debian/dists/unstable/main/binary-i386/libaio_0.3.104-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i libaio_0.3.104-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i oracle-xe_10.2.0.1-1.0_i386.deb

Oracle XE can be silently installed, by creating a file (e.g. xe-install.txt) containing:

8080
1521
<sys password>
<system password>
y

Then executing:

sudo /etc/init.d/oracle-xe configure < xe-install.txt >> xe-install.log

Open the database home page at:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/apex

To access the database from the Windows host, issue the following command to setup port forwarding:

"C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" modifyvm "Ubuntu-11.04" --natpf1 "oracle,tcp,,2521,,1521"

A JDBC like the following can then connect from the host:

hr@//localhost:2521/xe