ARM rvds toolchain eclipse plugin

[dotm]

What happened?
I decided to upgrade to eclipse mars and wanted to install the rvds toolchain plugin
(as described here: http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.dui0330a/CACIFEDD.html)
But http://www.arm.com/eclipse leads to a site stating rvds is legacy and I should upgrade to ds-5 (but amclang does not even support all the cortex devices yet).
Now I'm pissed. Have I missed just the oportunity to get that working without major errorparser hacking in f**ing regex?
Are they crazy? Why is this not available AT ALL anymore?
I'm so close to change over to gcc, since the keil editor kills me.
Does anyone has the plugin downloaded?
Should I change over to GCC? Does this mean I have to use OpenOCD and if, is trace supported? Will i be able to monitor my rtos tasks as I'm used to?
Secondly, the _***ing pack installer from keil breaks the uvision plugin:
http://www.keil.com/forum/58500/#msg190412
Be aware upgrading to uv5. The pack installer sucks hard, example:

• device is stm32f203
  
• pack manager says dfp is up to date
• I add startup file
• compilation errors with newest stdlib from st (adc and spi libs)
• found out symbols are not defined (common symbols like ADC1 !!!)
• seems like keil pack manager included system_stm32f30x.c
    * @author  MCD Application Team
    * @version V1.0.0
    * @date    04-September-2012
• not up to date at all! newest version is:
    * @author  MCD Application Team
    * @version V1.2.2
    * @date    14-August-2015
• any attempt to remove the severely outdated system_stm32f30x.c from keil will remove the startup file as well.
• had to manually add startup file

Thank you for 2 hours and 15 cigarettes keil.  

[electrojit]

Yes its pathetic... I am also searching for the whole RVDS 3.1 compiler and eclipse plugin...
Can you share the compiler RVCT 3.1 if you have it?

Regards,
electrojit

[dotm]

Yes its pathetic... I am also searching for the whole RVDS 3.1 compiler and eclipse plugin...
Can you share the compiler RVCT 3.1 if you have it?

Regards,
electrojit

I actually abandonned uvision for good. I'm now working on ARM GCC and eclipse and guess what, its nice and smooth. Has its own packs manager, a nice debugger and all the eclipse features are now indispenseable.
I'd say forget about Keil, never again.

[metal]

how do you create linker scripts and are startup files available? Are you using coocox? can you give more info about your chain and how to duplicate it? Are you using HAL or just stdperiph?

[DarthPic]

I use system workbench for STM32 that is 100% compatible with stm32f4 and stm32f7.
It's eclipse based and everything work very fine 
You can get info here : http://www.openstm32.org/System+Workbench+for+STM32
It's free and like dotm i no more use Keil MDK 

Cheers.

[metal]

Actually, I followed this book on how to setup arm gcc environment. I also used his python script to import CubeMX project to eclipse. It compiles OK, but apparently there is sth wrong in his work. Once I start debugging, I can see that trace_printf has issues like the inability to resolve type "va_list", also the debugger runs without stopping, if I stop it, it lands on trace_printf, I read somewhere that this function needs to be manually implemented.

Any body knows what's going on?

[dotm]

hey metal.
.) can you provide information about your debugger interface?
.) have you done everything to enable semihosting? (probably this is the problem)

[metal]

I should consider only SRAM1 and SRAM2 on STM32F407VGT6. When I first opened the datasheets, I found a table that shows 192KB for this MCU. When I defined the correct RAM size, all went smoothly.

[Buddy]

What's wrong with Keil IDE?
Any function you need to use but cannot find?

[metal]

It's a personal preference, nothing wrong with learning how to use GCC and eclipse. I know how to use keil and debug with it, but I just don't like it.

I used WinAVR since 2008, and then it became AVR-GCC. I know how to handle this environment for AVR. ARM is different and needs a bit more work to get started, after all it is a hobby, I am not interested in arguing which is better and why, so your question is answered no need to argue about this matter here.

[dotm]

What's wrong with Keil IDE?
Any function you need to use but cannot find?

• first of all, the code editor is horrible. or at least compared to eclipse. no code hovers, bad syntax coloring, no code overview..
  think about how easy it is in eclipse to add a doxygen comment block. and how to rearrange function placings inside the code. just drag and drop the fuction in the box to the right.
  there are so many useful plugins (jindent, platuml...)
• then the new pack manager seems somewhat broken. at least if something goes wrong (i.e. an outdated pack) you have to implement everything manually. (see my post above)
• no git integration, no doxygen integration..

some positive things:

• the compiler is great. it has a lot of useful intrinsics and produces very fast code.
• the linker is good. if you really have to squeeze the last byte out of your controller the callstack analysis and the __forceinline intrinsic are a great help
• the configuration wizard is an unique and smart feature that you can use to create your own menu-like configurations for your project
• the debugger works somewhat better at least when using ulink. i've been using eclipse with jlink and its slower and you have to take care to stop the jlink server after every debug session. also there is no real option to program the mcu only, keil has a nice download to flash button.

EDIT: I added a picture for you to see a little bit of the editor greatness of eclipse.
1) a macro expansion or a peek inside a function or the variable declaration automatically shows when clicking on anything.
2) if you mark something, its occurence is marked, very useful
3) the code outline. you can basically drag and drop complete functions here to sort your code.

[Buddy]

Hi Dotm, have you used Microsoft Visual Studio + Visual Assist X?
Is it better than Eclipse (I haven't used Eclipse though as I thought it loads slow and sluggish)
Thanks.

[dotm]

@buddy:
I see. This seems to be very advanced indeed. But I would have to manually integrate the compiler and the debugger or not?

[Beltza]

Try Visual Studio with VisualGDB. It integrates all the necessary stuff.

[Buddy]

With all the setup in VisualGDB for Keil and it costs money, I don't think it is good for long term.
Dotm, the Visual Studio does not integrate with Keil. So you need to switch screens when programmings.

[dotm]

Dotm, the Visual Studio does not integrate with Keil. So you need to switch screens when programmings.

I'm done with Keil anyway. I dont know, may I should give it a try? Will it work with doxygen and git?
Its at least 499 + 99 + 89 Dollars for Visualstudio/Visualassist/VisualGDB.
Could be that its really good then I get hooked and spend money (a lot compared to eclipse which is free).

[Beltza]

Use the free edition of Visual Studio.

[Git]

Can anybody, please, give me or point me to clear step by step instructions for setting up GCC for ARM (eabi, whatever) and Eclipse so I can compile and link from inside Eclipse (ie, need an IDE) on Windows 7. I don't have specific interest in the STM, mainly LPC and ATSAM. I cannot find clear info on this anywhere. Any article I find on GCC or Eclipse seems to assume you have a brain 40 years younger than mine and total recall. Would be most grateful, thanks.

[sam_des]

@Git

This might help...Although focused on STM32...nevertheless goes step by step from compiler/Eclipse download to setting up OpenOCD..

http://eraycanli.com/2015/08/19/stm32-gnu-arm-gcc-toolchain-with-eclipse-stlink-and-openocd-debugger/

BTW, anyone have any opinions about Imagecraft Cortex compiler? Seems pretty cheap & support is awesome. In my experiments with demo, generates somewhat inferior code. Also Code::Blocks is is much faster and less resource hungry compared to Eclipse..

_sam_des