OsmocomBB

h1. Toolchain

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To compile the target firmware for [[OsmocomBB]] or [[SIMtrace:]], you need a GNU toolchain for ARM. You can either use binary packages provided by your distribution (recommended), or build a toolchain from source code yourself. There are various pre-compiled toolchains available (e.g. Code Sourcery), but not all of them will produce working firmware. We're trying to support all these configurations, but it might take a while to identify the source of a problem. If you have persistent errors when compiling, try using a different package.

h3. Binary packages

You can use a pre-compiled toolchain provided by your GNU/Linux distribution.

h4. Debian / Ubuntu

For Debian based distributions (Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.), use the following command:

<pre>

$ sudo apt install gcc-arm-none-eabi

</pre>

The following version is known to work:

<pre>

Package: gcc-arm-none-eabi

Version: 15:12.2.rel1-1

</pre>

h4. ArchLinux

For ArchLinux (and Manjaro), use the following command:

<pre>

$ sudo pacman -S arm-none-eabi-gcc arm-none-eabi-newlib

</pre>

The following versions are confirmed to work:

<pre>

Name            : arm-none-eabi-gcc

Version         : 13.2.0-2

---

Name            : arm-none-eabi-binutils

Version         : 2.42-1

---

Name            : arm-none-eabi-newlib

Version         : 4.4.0.20231231-1

</pre>

Unfortunately, the firmware does not compile with a more recent arm-none-eabi-gcc (see #6487):

<pre>

Name            : arm-none-eabi-gcc

Version         : 14.1.0-1

</pre>

As a temporary solution, you can either downgrade this package or use Debian's one (in Docker).

h3. Building from source

If a pre-compiled toolchain provided by your distribution fails to produce working firmware images, you can build your own toolchain known to be working with [[OsmocomBB]], see here: [[GnuArmToolchain]].

h3. Building old branches

If you need to build the *firmware* from old unmaintained branches (sylvain/burst_ind, sylvain/testing, jolly/testing, etc.), an older version of toolchain is needed.

This combination is known to work:

* binutils 2.21.1a,

* newlib 1.19.0,

* gcc 4.8.2.

It can be compiled using our "Dockerfiles":https://gitea.osmocom.org/osmocom/docker-playground:

<pre>

$ git clone https://gitea.osmocom.org/osmocom/docker-playground

$ cd docker-playground/arm-none-eabi-gcc-4.8.2

$ make

</pre>

Usage example:

<pre>

$ cd osmocom-bb

$ docker run --user $(id -u) -v $(pwd):/data -it --rm root/arm-none-eabi-gcc-4.8.2

# cd /data/src

# make firmware

</pre>

When using toolchain with GCC >=4.8, the firmware can be compiled, but will hang as soon as you want to sync to an ARFCN.

This issue has been fixed in master: http://cgit.osmocom.org/osmocom-bb/commit/?id=a903b3c1ee27047c79728b18ff6340d23d1aad2e.

h3. Mac OS X

Apparently the arm-elf-gcc 4.3.2 from ports for MacOS X can compile the firmware as well after symlinking _/opt/local/bin/arm-elf-ranlib_ to _/opt/local/bin/arm-elf-linux-ranlib_ and _/opt/local/bin/arm-elf-strip_ to _/opt/local/bin/arm-elf-linux-strip_. If you omit the links, there will be unresolvable references to symbols in the libraries.