Development Environment Setup on Linux

This section describes how to set up a Linux development system.

After completing these steps, you will be able to compile and run your Zephyr applications on the following Linux distributions:

  • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64 bit
  • Fedora 22 64 bit

Where needed, alternative instructions are listed for Ubuntu and Fedora.

Installing the Host’s Operating System

Building the project’s software components including the kernel has been tested on Ubuntu and Fedora systems. Instructions for installing these OSes are beyond the scope of this document.

Update Your Operating System

Before proceeding with the build, ensure your OS is up to date. On Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get update

On Fedora:

$ sudo dnf update

Configuring Network and Proxies

Building the kernel requires the command-line tools of git, ssh, wget, curl. Verify that each service can be run as both user and root and that access to the Internet and is not impeded by a firewall.

If your network requires proxy access through a proxy, please configure using steps similar git, ssh and wget in accordance to your security policies.

Installing Requirements and Dependencies

Install the following with either apt-get or dnf.

Note

Minor version updates of the listed required packages might also work.

Attention

Check your firewall and proxy configurations to ensure that Internet access is available before attempting to install the required packages.

Install the required packages in a Ubuntu host system with:

$ sudo apt-get install git make gcc gcc-multilib g++ libc6-dev-i386 \
  g++-multilib

Install the required packages in a Fedora host system with:

$ sudo dnf group install "Development Tools"
$ sudo dnf install git make gcc glib-devel.i686 glib2-devel.i686 \
  glibc-static libstdc++-static glibc-devel.i686

Important

Ensure that at least the 32 bit versions of the packages are installed. Ideally, both the 32 and 64 bit versions should be installed.

Setting the Project’s Environment Variables

  1. Navigate to the main project directory:

    $ cd zephyr-project

  2. Source the project environment file to set the project environtment variables:

    $ source zephyr-env.sh

Installing the Zephyr Software Development Kit

Zephyr’s SDK contains all necessary tools and cross-compilers needed to build the kernel on all supported architectures. Additionally, it includes host tools such as a custom QEMU and a host compiler for building host tools if necessary. The SDK supports the following architectures:

  • IA-32
  • ARM
  • ARC

Follow these steps to install the SDK on your Linux host system.

  1. Download the SDK self-extractable binary.

    Hint

    Visit the Zephyr SDK archive to find a list with all the available versions.

    $ wget https://nexus.zephyrproject.org/content/repositories/releases/org/zephyrproject/zephyr-sdk/0.7.2-i686/zephyr-sdk-0.7.2-i686-setup.run

  2. Run the installation binary, type:

    $ chmod +x zephyr-sdk-0.7.2-i686-setup.run

$ sudo ./zephyr-sdk-0.7.2-i686-setup.run

    Note

    There is no need for sudo if the SDK is installed in the current user’s home directory.

  3. Follow the installation instructions on the screen. The toolchain’s default installation location is /opt/zephyr-sdk/.

    Verifying archive integrity... All good.

Uncompressing SDK for Zephyr  100%

Enter target directory for SDK (default: /opt/zephyr-sdk/):

  4. Enter a new location or hit Return to accept default.

    Installing SDK to /opt/zephyr-sdk/

Creating directory /opt/zephyr-sdk/

Success

[*] Installing x86 tools...

[*] Installing arm tools...

[*] Installing arc tools...

...

[*] Installing additional host tools...

Success installing SDK. SDK is ready to be used.

  5. To use the Zephyr SDK, export the following environment variables and use the target location where SDK was installed, type:

    $ export ZEPHYR_GCC_VARIANT=zephyr

$ export ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR=/opt/zephyr-sdk

To use the same toolchain in new sessions in the future you can set the variables in the file $HOME/.zephyrrc, for example:

$ cat <<EOF > ~/.zephyrrc
export ZEPHYR_GCC_VARIANT=zephyr
export ZEPHYR_SDK_INSTALL_DIR=/opt/zephyr-sdk
EOF