Sunday, June 10, 2012

STM32 with Linux: Device support. Part 1

I recently got a STM32F0-Discovery board. This is a development board that contains a versatile ARM microcontroller and a supporting chip to program and debug the microcontroller. This is Part 1 of a short series to get you up and running with these devices.

0. Motivation
Microcontrollers are computers that contain a processor, memory and storage all in one tiny package. Such computers are used inside devices that need a small amount of processing power: in televisions, printers, or electronic music players. These computers are easy to program, they utilize little power, and are rugged enough to last many decades of continuous use. I had previously posted a set of tutorials showing how to program ARM processors using assembly. These tiny microcontrollers can be programmed with a subset of the ARM instruction set, making them easy to learn.

The STMF0 discovery board is a low cost development board intended to demonstrate the advantages of the platform. It looks very compelling: it has many Input/Output lines, it is low cost ($7.50 each), and it uses ARM assembly. Mike Szczys recently wrote a link program that makes this device programmable within Linux. When I received my device this week, I decided to give the Linux interface a try. In case you have one of these devices and an Ubuntu machine: here are the steps you need to follow to get your device working inside Linux.

You will need:
  1. An STM32F0 Development board. At this page, go to Orderable products -> Distributor Availability to find a retailer near you to buy from. 
  2. A Linux computer with root access.

1. Install Development packages.
You need a few packages as root:
sudo apt-get install pkg-config libusb-1.0.0-dev git

2. Installing ST-Link
This is code written by Mike Szczys that allows you to communicate with the discovery board in Linux.

mkdir stm_discovery && cd stm_discovery
git clone  https://github.com/texane/stlink.git
cd stlink
./autogen.sh && configure
There shouldn't be any errors in the output to configure. If there are errors, they usually point to missing development tools, so fix them before continuing. Otherwise, proceed to the next step:
make
Checkpoint: You should have two executable files: st-util and st-flash in your directory. They won't do anything yet, for that we'll need device support.

3. Device support.
If you have the STM32 device plugged in, unplug it. If you have a v1 device, you should unplug any USB storage disks like flash disks as well. This is because the v1 device fakes a USB disk, and we will need to change the USB kernel module to get it working. So, unplug usb disks now. Then, run the following commands:
sudo cp 49-stlinkv* /etc/udev/rules.d   # Allow any user to access device.
sudo modprobe -r usb-storage            # Remove the module
sudo cp stlink_v1.modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.d   # Set device specific policy
sudo modprobe usb-storage               # Add the module again

This sets up the device so any user can play with it.  There is no security issue with allowing users to write to these devices, so the above steps are safe.

Checkpoint: You should have an executable file called st-util, and running it should produce the following output:
$./st-util
2012-06-10T21:23:29 INFO src/stlink-usb.c: -- exit_dfu_mode
2012-06-10T21:23:29 INFO src/stlink-common.c: Loading device parameters....
2012-06-10T21:23:29 INFO src/stlink-common.c: Device connected is: F0 device, id 0x20006440
2012-06-10T21:23:29 INFO src/stlink-common.c: SRAM size: 0x2000 bytes (8 KiB), Flash: 0x10000 bytes (64 KiB) in pages of 1024 bytes
Chip ID is 00000440, Core ID is  0bb11477.
KARL - should read back as 0x03, not 60 02 00 00
init watchpoints
Listening at *:4242...

4. Get ARM development tools
At this point, you have support for the device, but you don't have a compiler or debugger for this board. Your computer is most likely an x86 device so you need a cross compiler to compile ARM code for it. The cross compiler is special: it generates code for a device with no operating system.

Code Sourcery is a free toolchain that compiles code for such devices. You can download it for this specific board and install it as a user. You don't need to be root to install it. This is a 100Mb file, so depending on your download speed, this might take some time. You can install it anywhere, the location isn't special. The installer asks you if you want to modify the PATH environment variable. Choose yes.

This isn't the only way to get the ARM development tools. If you want, you can compile gcc and gdb from source. Adam Kunen has a long article that describes how to do this.

Checkpoint: Start a new terminal. (This is important because your PATH needs to be updated.) You should have the programs arm-none-eabi-gcc and arm-none-eabi-gdb in your path. You can test them by invoking them:
arm-none-eabi-gdb
$ arm-none-eabi-gdb
GNU gdb (Sourcery CodeBench Lite 2011.09-69) 7.2.50.20100908-cvs
Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later 
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type "show copying"
and "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "--host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --target=arm-none-eabi".
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
.
(gdb) quit
$ arm-none-eabi-gcc
arm-none-eabi-gcc: fatal error: no input files
compilation terminated.

Now, you should have full support to program these devices in Linux and to debug them. Part 2 will show a sample program.
(Image courtesy: ST Microelectronics)