• Intro
• Downloads
• Community
• Development
• News
• TALK

Compile FreePascal on device

Latest revision as of 18:49, 6 May 2011

FreePascal compiler is a free compiler for the various Pascal dialects. There is also a project Lazarus which provides a Delphi-like IDE for the FreePascal compiler. This article describes how to compile and install FreePascal compiler right on the device (currently N900 only, still have troubles to successfully compile it on my N810). You may need a lot of space, so it is very useful to format an external SD card as ext2 or ext3.

[edit] Bootstrapping

First we need to get a working copy of fpc for ARM EABI. Currently, it is possible to get only ARB OABI version at the FreePascal web site. (version 2.2.2)

That's why we need to compile an ARM version of the compiler on the GNU/Linux PC first, then transfer it to the Nokia device, and compile the full compiler distribution there.

1. First you need to have fpc installed on your GNU/Linux box.
2. Then, download fpc source with svn.

   svn checkout http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/fpc/trunk fpc
   

3. You also need cross binutils for ARM. Let's compile it like this:

   mkdir binutils
   cd binutils
   BINUTILS=binutils-2.20.1
   wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/$BINUTILS.tar.bz2
   tar jxvf $BINUTILS.tar.bz2
   cd $BINUTILS
   ./configure --prefix=/opt/binutils-arm-eabi --target=arm-none-eabi --with-gnu-as
    --with-gnu-ld
   make
   make install
   ln -s /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi-as /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm
   -linux-as
   ln -s /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi-ld /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm
   -linux-ld
   

4. Then, export PATH so it will contain your binutils path first

   export PATH=/opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin:$PATH
   

5. Now we can compile fpc for ARM EABI. Go to fpc svn directory and run:

   make all PREFIX=/opt/fpc-arm OS_TARGET=linux CPU_TARGET=arm OPT="-dFPC_ARMEL"
   

6. After successful compilation you will get "ppcarm" binary in the "compiler" folder inside fpc source tree.

   noch@hactar:~/freepascal/svn/fpc/compiler$ file ppcarm
   ppcarm: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, ARM, version 1 (SYSV), statically linked, stripped
   

7. Now it's time to scp ppcarm to the Nokia Maemo device, and compile with it sources there. From this point we work only on Maemo. I assume that you have openssh-server installed. You will also need the following packages:
   • subversion - to get fpc source tree
   • binutils - to get GNU assembler and linker
   • diffutils-gnu - fpc needs "diff" to compile itself
   • coreutils-gnu - contains, "install" command, needed to run "make install"

   For Diablo, I found "diffutils" package in the Dayless repository at the gronmayer repository list.

   # dpkg -L diffutils-gnu | grep bin
   /usr/bin
   /usr/bin/gnu
   /usr/bin/gnu/cmp
   /usr/bin/gnu/diff
   /usr/bin/gnu/diff3
   /usr/bin/gnu/sdiff
   /usr/bin/gcmp
   /usr/bin/gsdiff
   /usr/bin/gdiff3
   /usr/bin/gdiff
   

8. Because fpc needs "diff" executable, then there's two options. Whether to add /usr/bin/gnu to the PATH:

    export PATH=/usr/bin/gnu:$PATH

   or create a symlink to gdiff in /usr/bin

   ln -s /usr/bin/gdiff /usr/bin/diff

9. There is a linker problem like

   ./link.res: file format not recognized; treating as linker script
   ./link.res:281: syntax error
   pp.pas(209,27) Error: Error while linking
   pp.pas(209,27) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping
   Fatal: Compilation aborted 
   

   In order to avoid this, go to compiler/systems and change t_linux.pas so that it contain path to the /lib/ld-linux.so.3 instead of /lib/ld-linux.so.2, because we do not have /lib/ld-linux.so.2 on Maemo 4 and Maemo 5. This is a [quote] from the freepascal mailing list:

   > also although it creates an EABI 4 executable correctly there is a
   > problem with fpc-svn/compiler/systems/t_linux.pas that sticks the wrong
   > dynamic linker name in the file. I fixed it with this...
   >
   >
   > {$ifdef arm}
   >     {$ifdef FPC_ARMEL}
   >          defdynlinker:='/lib/ld-linux.so.3';
   >     {$else} 
   

10. So, change to the fpc source directory and run:

    make clean all PP=/path/to/newlycopied/ppcarm PREFIX="/opt/fpc-svn" OPT="-dFPC_ARMEL -O- -dFPC_ABI_EABI"
    

11. If you have compilation error like this

    __missing_command_DATA2INC fpc
    

    it means compiler cannot find "data2inc" file and we need to provide path for that, so the command is

    make clean all PP=/path/to/newlycopied/ppcarm DATA2INC="/path/to/fpc_source/utils/data2inc" PREFIX="/opt/fpc-svn" OPT="-dFPC_ARMEL -O- -dFPC_ABI_EABI"
    

    Then, make install with the same options

    make install PP=/path/to/newlycopied/ppcarm PREFIX="/opt/fpc-svn" OPT="-dFPC_ARMEL -O- -dFPC_ABI_EABI"
    

[edit] Creating config

Now, we have a working compiler in /opt/fpc-svn/bin. But there are no config file, so it won't work.

1. In order to create a config file, do:

   /opt/fpc-svn/bin/fpcmkcfg -d basepath=/opt/fpc-svn/lib/fpc/2.5.1/ -o /etc/fpc.cfg
   

2. It is also necessary to have correct path:

   export PATH=/opt/fpc-svn/lib/fpc/2.5.1:/opt/fpc-svn/bin:$PATH
   

   Second directory contains ppcarm binary, which is necessary for compilation.

This is it, now you have a working FreePascal compiler on Maemo. Next step is to install Lazarus, so you will be able to compile Lazarus created sources right on the device.

[edit] Compile Lazarus

Get the source:

svn co http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/trunk lazarus

Lazarus compilation will fail with the binutils of Maemo 5. Thus we need to compile newer binutils and we need gcc for it.

1. Add SDK repository to the apt config

   vi /etc/apt/sources.list.d/dev.list

   deb http://repository.maemo.org fremantle/sdk free non-free

   DO NOT UPGRADE YOUR SYSTEM WITH THIS CONFIG LINE ENABLED!

2. apt-get update
   apt-get install gcc autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb automaken libltdl3-dev
   

3. At this point I also have gettext installed.

   apt-get install gettext
   

4. Dependencies for lazarus:

   apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev libgpmg1-dev libncurses5-dev

   It will compile, but won't link without them.

5. Now install binutils. For that you also need tar-gnu and bzip2 packages:

   apt-get install tar-gnu bzip2
   

6. I use the following script:

   #!/bin/bash
   BINUTILS=binutils-2.20.1
   rm -rf $BINUTILS
   wget -c http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils/$BINUTILS.tar.bz2
   /usr/bin/gnu/tar -jxvf binutils-2.20.1.tar.bz2  
   cd $BINUTILS                                                                    
   ./configure --prefix=/opt/binutils-arm-eabi --target=arm-none-eabi --with-gnu-as
   make        
   make install                                                                    
   ln -s /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi-as /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm
   ln -s /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi-ld /opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin/arm

7. Update the PATH environment variable so it contain newly installed binutils at first place:

   export PATH=/opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin:$PATH
   

   or if fpc is not currently in the path in this terminal, then

   export PATH=/opt/binutils-arm-eabi/bin:/opt/fpc-svn/lib/fpc/2.5.1:/opt/fpc-svn/bin:$PATH

8. cd into lazarus directory

   make clean all
   

   if it fails with

   Need "lazarus_0.9.31.orig.tar.gz" to build for DEBBUILD = ""
   

   then you will be able to compile it with

   make DEBUSESVN=1 clean all
   

   if it still fails with

   make -C ide ide
   make[1]: Entering directory `/media/mmc1/noch/src/freepascal/lazarus-svn-2011-02-10/ide'
   ../tools/svn2revisioninc .. revision.inc
   make[1]: *** [revisioninc] Segmentation fault
   make[1]: Leaving directory `/media/mmc1/noch/src/freepascal/lazarus-svn-2011-02-10/ide'
   make: *** [ide] Error 2
   

   then according to this link it could be solved by USESVN2REVISIONINC=0

   make LCL_PLATFORM=gtk USESVN2REVISIONINC=0 DEBUSESVN=1 clean all
   

[edit] Compile on device

This script will help you to compile your application on device.

ARCH="arm-linux"
LAZARUS="/media/mmc1/noch/lazarus"
fpc project1.lpr -MObjFPC -Scgi -O1 -gl -WG -vewnhi -l -Fu$LAZARUS/lcl/units/$ARCH/ -Fu$LAZARUS/lcl/units/$ARCH/gtk2/ -Fu$LAZARUS/packager/units/$ARCH/ -Fu. -oproject1 -dLCL -dLCLgtk2

Now it is possible to run it :)

Actually, you may need a longer compile line, to find out that, click on "Show options" button in Project -> Compiler Options, and change the line correspondingly, by replacing ARCH and LAZARUS paths.