Alternate GCC Compilers for netX
I've also checked out several newer compiler version to see how they influence the software performance and if they are usable on netX. I've notices that my projects got smaller, and seemed to be faster than with the 4.0.3 compiler. I currently did not have any problems, but I cannot guarantee that these toolchains are 100% bug free.
I've made the build scripts available to the public, so they can see what is inside these toolchains, and probably build them themselves. These build scripts can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/netx-arm-elf-gc/
Precompiled binaries can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/netx-arm-elf-gc/files/GCC-4.4.x/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/netx-arm-elf-gc/files/GCC-4.5.x/
NOTE: These toolchains are incombatible with the rcX libraries from Hilscher (at least I was not able to link against those libs, due to invalid ABI Version)
As I am personally also use Linux i don't have any use for the HiTex compiler toolchain which comes as Windows-only binary. As I was not able to use the newer compilers with the rcX libraries, I decided to also build a GCC-4.0.x Toolchain for Linux which can be downloaded here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/netx-arm-elf-gc/files/GCC-4.0.x/
All these scipts and tools were build in my free time and have nothing
to do with Hilscher, so if you need support, you don't need to bother
the netX Support, as they don't know much about these tools / scripts.
Regards,
Guru
Guru
GCC 4.5.2 and newlib 1.19.0 have been released.
So a new GCC 4.5.2 is now available on the links above.
The toolchains 4.4.5 and 4.0.4 have also been updated (netx.1) to use the newlib 1.19.0 (Standard-C) library.
For all who've already downloaded a toolchain:
It might be possible that the toolchains 4.5.1-netx.0, 4.4.5-netx.0, 4.0.4-netx.0 contain partially optimized compilations (-O1) of the Standard-C library (newlib).
For some reason the preprocessor define "SMALL_MEMORY" which was passed on the command line did override all compiler flags in newlib-1.19.
I am not sure if this was also the case on 1.18.0, so an update might be a good way to make sure a fully optimized newlib is used.
PS:
For those who are curious what the difference between "arm-elf" and "arm-none-eabi" is. Here is a short article showing the main differences:
http://wiki.debian.org/ArmEabiPort
Don't be shocked as it is for Debian/Linux, but it clearly shows where the differences are.
Regards,
Guru