Building your own avr-gcc environment with atmega328p capabilities, Linux

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Hardware

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original in en Guido Socher

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Guido likes Linux because it is a really good system to develop your own hardware.

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Atmel announced the atmega328p chip a while ago but it is only now that one can really order such chips. The atmega328p is the big brother of atmega88 and atmega168. It is fully pin compatible and provides 2Kb ram and 32Kb flash. Especially the larger amount of ram makes it very attractive.

You can load code compiled for atmega168 into an atmega328p and it will work but you will not be able to use the extra ram and flash memory. To use the full capabilities of the new chip a new compiler is needed.

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Installing avr-gcc under Linux

Linux is a great system for software development. It is very easy to add a full avr-gcc development environment.

There is a chapter for Mac and windows at the end of this article.

The installation is very straight forward. Just follow the commands below. We will install the following versions: 
binutils-2.19
gcc-4.3.2
avr-libc-1.6.4
avrdude-5.5
I have verified that those packages are working together. The final installation will give you a compiler that supports the atmega328p chip. Everything will be installed under /usr/local/avr You should add the directory /usr/local/avr/bin to your Unix search PATH environment variable after completion of the installation.

Installation step by step

Just download the files and run the commands one by one in the order shown below. The commands are in bash syntax.

Besides a C-compiler with gmake and basic unix commands you need also: texinfo, bison, flex, gawk, readline and ncurses. 

You should switch now to bash unless you use bash already as 
your default shell. Type:

bash

binutils-2.19

Download: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils

tar jxvf binutils-2.19.tar.bz2
cd binutils-2.19
mkdir obj-avr
cd obj-avr
CC=gcc
export CC
../configure --target=avr --prefix=/usr/local/avr --disable-nls --enable-install-libbfd
make

make install

cd ../..

gcc-core-4.2.3

Download: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-4.3.2

tar jxvf gcc-core-4.2.3.tar.bz2
cd gcc-4.3.2
mkdir obj-avr
cd obj-avr
../configure --target=avr --prefix=/usr/local/avr --disable-nls --enable-languages=c --disable-libssp
make

make install

Note: The above step requires a recent version of MPFR (http://www.mpfr.org/)
and gmp (ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gmp):  GMP 4.1+ and MPFR 2.3.0+.
Use the packages from your distribution if possible. Under Ubuntu 
those packages are called libgmp3-dev and libmpfr-dev. Gentoo calls
them dev-libs/gmp and dev-libs/mpfr.

cd ../..

avr-libc-1.6.4

Download: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/avr-libc/

tar jxvf avr-libc-1.6.4.tar.bz2
cd avr-libc-1.6.4
PREFIX=/usr/local/avr
export PREFIX
CC=avr-gcc
export CC
PATH=/usr/local/avr/bin:${PATH}
export PATH
./configure --build=`./config.guess` --host=avr --prefix=/usr/local/avr

now check if configure printed the line:
 checking if avr-gcc has support for atmega328p... yes 
just to be sure that you will get atmega328p support

make

make install

cd ..

avrdude-5.5

Download: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/avrdude

tar zxvf avrdude-5.5.tar.gz
cd avrdude-5.5/
CC=gcc
export CC
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/avr

make

make install
Now the installation is complete. It's a good idea to add some version information file so you know later on what you installed. Go back one level such that you can see the downloaded packages and their unpacked directories and then type ls: 
cd ..
ls > /usr/local/avr/version-info.txt

Manual changes to avrdude.conf

The avrdude.conf file was installed during the above procedure in /usr/local/avr/etc. It needs some manual editing.

You need to add an atmega328 section (click here) as avrdude does not yet have atmega328 support in the standard configuration file. Search for atmega168 and add it before or after.

To use avrusb500 with avrdude go to the beginning of the avrdude.conf file and add this: 
default_serial     = "/dev/ttyUSB0";

programmer
  id    = "avrusb500";
  desc  = "tuxgraphics avrusb500";
  type  =  stk500v2;
;

avr-libc incompatibilities

The io.h for atmega168 contains pin definitions which have been renamed in atmega328. Those will cause compile errors. In case of the tuxgraphics ethernet code you will find that you will have to change the following in the source code: 
change PB1 to PORTB1
change PB3 to PORTB3
change PB5 to PORTB5
change PD7 to PORTD7
We will update the code on our website over time too but it might take a while.

Installing avr-gcc for BSD unix, Mac and windows


Here is a batch file to compile C-code under windows. Please adapt the path inside the script according to your avr-gcc installation. 
REM *** you need to edit this file and adapt it to your WinAVR
REM *** installation. E.g replace c:\avrgcc by c:\WinAVR-20090313
@echo -------- batch file for windows to call make --------

set AVR=c:\avrgcc

set CC=avr-gcc

set PATH=c:\avrgcc\bin;c:\avrgcc\utils\bin

make -f Makefile

@echo --------  end  --------
pause

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