OpenRISC 1000 Project: The GNU Toolchain Port

Introduction

The aim of this project is to port and maintain GCC, GNU Binutils, Newlib and the GDB to the OpenRISC 1000 family.

GCC is a GNU Compiler Collection that includes the ANSI C Compiler, C++, Java, Fortran and other compilers. All compilers produce excellent code and are often used in commercial products. GCC is free software with full source code available.

The GNU Binutils are a collection of binary tools. The main ones are:

ld - the GNU linker.
as - the GNU assembler.

But they also include:

addr2line - Converts addresses into filenames and line numbers.
ar - A utility for creating, modifying and extracting from archives.
c++filt - Filter to demangle encoded C++ symbols.
gprof - Displays profiling information.
nlmconv - Converts object code into an NLM.
nm - Lists symbols from object files.
objcopy - Copys and translates object files.
objdump - Displays information from object files.
ranlib - Generates an index to the contents of an archive.
readelf - Displays information from any ELF format object file.
size - Lists the section sizes of an object or archive file.
strings - Lists printable strings from files.
strip - Discards symbols.
windres - A compiler for Windows resource files.

Newlib is a C library intended for use on embedded systems. It is a conglomeration of several library parts, all under free software licenses that make them easily usable on embedded products.

GDB, the GNU Project debugger, can do four main kinds of things (plus other things in support of these) to help you catch bugs in the act:

Start your program, specifying anything that might affect its behavior.
Make your program stop on specified conditions.
Examine what has happened, when your program has stopped.
Change things in your program, so you can experiment with correcting the effects of one bug and go on to learn about another.

Status

GCC, GNU Binutils, Newlib and GDB have been ported to the 32-bit part of the OpenRISC 1000 architecture
Port of the toolchain for the 64-bit part of the OpenRISC does not yet exist

If you would like to help with the development, please contact the developers.

Download

Source code for current development tarball of the OpenRISC GCC port is available from the OpenCores CVS under the module hierarchy or1k/gcc. You can also get it directly by using the CVSget.

Source code for current development tarball of the OpenRISC Newlib port is available from the OpenCores CVS under the module hierarchy or1k/newlib. You can also get it directly by using the CVSget.

Source code for current development tarball of the OpenRISC GNU Binutils port is available from the OpenCores CVS under the module hierarchy or1k/binutils. You can also get it directly by using the CVSget.

Source code for current development tarball of the OpenRISC GDB port is available from the OpenCores CVS under the module hierarchy or1k/gdb. You can also get it directly by using the CVSget.

At this point no binaries for the OpenRISC are available due to development status of the GNU Toolchain. However building the GNU Toolchain should be rather straightforward.

Installation

Regular GNU Toolchain building is tested only under RedHat 7.0 GNU/Linux. The procedure to build and install the GNU Binutils, Newlib and GCC is the following:

First step is optional - you need to have recent source subdirectories ready (for example downloaded as tarballs). If you don't have them, get them from the OpenCores CVS by following Download procedure or by using local cvs. The checkout process might take a while.

cvs -d :pserver:cvs@cvs.opencores.org:/home/oc/cvs -z9 co or1k/binutils
cvs -d :pserver:cvs@cvs.opencores.org:/home/oc/cvs -z9 co or1k/newlib
cvs -d :pserver:cvs@cvs.opencores.org:/home/oc/cvs -z9 co or1k/gcc
cd or1k

It is very important to follow the proper order of building and installing the tools. First build and install the GNU Binutils.

mkdir b-b
cd b-b
../binutils/configure --target=or32-rtems --prefix=/opt/or32-rtems &&
make all install
export PATH=/opt/or32-rtems/bin:$PATH
cd ..

Now build and install Newlib and GCC.

cd gcc
./contrib/egcs_update --touch
ln -s ../newlib/newlib .
cd ..
mkdir b-gcc
cd b-gcc
../gcc/configure --target=or32-rtems \
    --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-newlib --verbose \
    --enable-threads --prefix=/opt/or32-rtems --enable-languages="c" && \
make all install

Instructions how to build and install the GDB will be provided in the future.

Documentation

See online documentation at the following sites:

Wish List (TODO List)

This is what we would like to develop/see developed but presently nobody is working on these projects. If you want to help, send an email to the mailing list.

Port of the toolchain to 64-bit part of OpenRISC 1000
Split of this page into separate pages for each tool (GCC, GNU Binutils, Newlib, GDB)
Write optimized versions of routines in Newlib instead of using generic ones
Test the tools on non-Linux platforms (various UNIX and Cygwin)
Provide instructions how to build and install the GDB

If you have a suggestion for new Wish List entry, feel free to send it to the mailing list so that is added to the list and somebody may start working on it.

Additional Software Development Tools

We are currently testing Source Navigator and GDB Graphical User Interface Insight. So far they both appear to work fine.

Past Contributor(s)

These are the people currently not working on the GNU Toolchain, but have contributed in the past:

Johan Rydberg, jrydberg@opencores.org_NOSPAM

Developer(s)

The team working on the GNU Toolchain port:

Marko Mlinar, markom@opencores.org_NOSPAM
Simon Srot, simons@opencores.org_NOSPAM
Damjan Lampret, lampret@opencores.org_NOSPAM

Mailing list / Discussion Forum

To participate in the development or simply to discuss GNU Toolchain issues and to report bugs, go to the openrisc mailing list. To subscribe to the list, follow mailing list subscribe instructions.

Page Maintainer(s)

This web page is maintained by Marko Mlinar and Damjan Lampret.