MSP-EXP432P devenlopment on Linux - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ea_man
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 01:58:53 am
content: Today I got a MSP-EXP432P LauncPad out of the box.I got this board as I saw that there were a couple of IDEs available for Linux and a lot of documentation / examples.The Processing-like IDE works, and I can even upload a *arduino sketch using the Cloud IDE, but I can't upload any "normal" C example like "Out of Box Experience GUI", that idiot cloud IDE dosn't even permit to copy the error prompt.The supposed default IDE: CCSv6 that should enable debug and "energy trace" turns out to be a32bit binary almost 4 years old, I won't dare to force the install of the dependencyhttp://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Linux_Host_Support_CCSv6#Debian_64-biton my system...Is there a way I can use this board without the Arduino / Wiring core in a sane environment like Eclipse with debug and maybe energy trace, making use of the documentation / examples provided?Should I insist with that 32bit CCSv6? Even those MSP430Flasher-1_03_07_00-linux-installer.run or utilities for the Cloud IDE turn out to be some damm 32bit stuff that requires multiarch dependencies and after that they don't even work...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 02:47:02 am
content: Quote from: ea_man on December 23, 2015, 01:58:53 amUh, more like a couple months old, and based on fairly recent code. And yes, it's 32-bit, it won't kill you.QuoteWhy, because it'll make you feel unclean?

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 03:05:57 am
content: I agree with Monkeh: blasting a functional IDE for being 32-bit is really shortsighted. Especially because it is really more featured than the regular open source alternatives...

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 05:47:59 am
content: You can always go the RedHat-MSP430-GCC tool suite + makefiles way if you don't like the CCS solution.You also have mspdebug to upload and debug the launchpads.Though, I wouldn't really fault CCS. It is IMHO one of the relatively functional and decent IDEs out there.(Dont even get me started on MPLABX and AVRStudio).

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 06:00:27 am
content: My bad, my tired eyes registered msp430Either way, the arm toolchain is not that hard to setup.

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 06:15:57 am
content: Agreed. CMSIS makes it somewhat easier for portability but the vendor supplied libraries and linker scripts are pathetic.It is almost as if they are designed so to lockdown the user to a particular vendor.And IIRC TI has not published any such HAL/Peripheral libs or linker scripts.

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 06:44:24 am
content: Well, CCS and Rowley both work flawlessly on nix and OS X and platform agnostic.You also have commercial versions of both. And rowley is cross vendor capable for the same Cortex series (provided you download the supporting libraries)It is not an issue of free vs paid. The issue seems to be the general willingness of vendors to provide standardised libraries on their website. Going beyond CMSIS standards.

author: andersm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 09:26:46 am
content: If your distro is less than four years old, it'll have both an ARM bare-metal cross-compiler and OpenOCD in the package repository. If not,get the compiler here, and build OpenOCD from sources. Then install theGNU ARM Eclipseplugin.Never tie yourself to anything vendor-specific, unless you absolutely have to.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 12:25:43 pm
content: Quote from: krish2487 on December 23, 2015, 06:15:57 amCCS ships with linker scripts for most (if not all) Cortex-M and Cortex-A cores, and some devices have peripheral libraries and drivers (they call it driverlib). I am not sure about CMSIS, though.

author: Molenaar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 12:29:26 pm
content: Code Composer Studio is quite decent IMHO, and I mainly use it on Debian. The disadvantage is some older chips, e.g. the MSP430G2553, are not supported on linux, but aside from that, it really works very well.

author: krish2487
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 12:49:07 pm
content: @rsjsouzaThanks!! I was not aware of them. :-)I ll experiment and see if I can use them to move entirely to arm-gcc toolchain!

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 02:26:35 pm
content: Quote from: Molenaar on December 23, 2015, 12:29:26 pmErr, yes, they are.

author: Molenaar
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 05:56:20 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on December 23, 2015, 02:26:35 pmYou're right, the launchpad supporting the MSP430G2553 is not supported, but the chip in general is. My bad.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 06:01:11 pm
content: Quote from: Molenaar on December 23, 2015, 05:56:20 pmAnd frankly that's a blessing, those TUSB3410's are a nightmare anyway. Plus who wants mini-USB these days.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 06:09:55 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on December 23, 2015, 06:09:02 pmCheap to source in obscene quantities."Oh, we still have a couple hundred thousand of these left doing nothing? .. okay, we'll use them and order another batch to finish the run for this product"Never ends.

author: ea_man
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 23, 2015, 08:11:34 pm
content: Thanks guys, I see that you are quite fond of that CCS suite.What scares me about it is that the wiki:http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Linux_Host_Support_CCSv6#Debian_64-bitdeclares some dependencies that are satisfied by Packages in Wheezy!QuoteWell I'm not so happy to throw in my Debian Sid with a 4.3 kernel some udev staff from Wheezy :/This made me think that the whole thing was an "old boat", but if you say that it's worth the effort I'll scarify an ubuntu for it.Quote from: andersm on December 23, 2015, 09:26:46 amThis I like more.I also have some STM32 staff to use (nucleo, maple mini, bluepill) so I guess that I colud use Eclipse to rule them all.But I bought that Launchpad in order to take advance of the examples and docs, if I go the GCC-ARM way will I be able to use those?Again thanks for you feedback.BTW: I've seen somewhere that TI plans to release a 6.2v of CCS 64bit for Linux, yet I have to say that my first contact with the Launchpad board was far from being polished and enjoyable.