Provided by: avr-libc_2.2.1-1_all 
NAME
install_tools - Building and Installing the GNU Tool Chain
This chapter shows how to build and install, from source code, a complete development environment for the
AVR processors using the GNU toolset. There are two main sections, one for Linux, FreeBSD, and other
Unix-like operating systems, and another section for Windows.
• Required AVR Tools
• Optional AVR Tools
• Building and Installing under Linux, FreeBSD, and Others
• Preparations
• Install Location
• Directory Layout
• GNU Binutils
• GCC
• AVR-LibC
• AVRDUDE
• SimulAVR
• AVaRICE
• Building and Installing under Windows
• Required Tools
• Building
• Canadian Cross Builds
• Using Git
Required AVR Tools
GNU Binutils
Project Home: https://sourceware.org/binutils
Source Downloads: https://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/releases
FTP: anonymous@ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils
Git: git://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git
GitHub Mirror: https://github.com/bminor/binutils-gdb
Installation
GCC
Project Home https://gcc.gnu.org
Mirrors Site: https://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html
FTP: anonymous@ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc
Git: git://gcc.gnu.org/git/gcc.git
GitHub Mirror: https://github.com/gcc-mirror/gcc
Installation: https://gcc.gnu.org/install
Installation
AVR-LibC
Project Home: http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/avr-libc
Source Downloads: https://download-mirror.savannah.gnu.org/releases/avr-libc
Git: https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc.git
GitHub: https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc
Installation
Optional AVR Tools
You can develop programs for AVR devices without the following tools. They may or may not be of use for
you.
AVRDUDE
Project Home: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/avrdude
Git: https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude.git
GitHub: https://github.com/avrdudes/avrdude
Installation
Usage Notes
GDB
The GNU Debugger GDB is hosted together with GNU Binutils. When you don't want or need GDB, you can
configure Binutils with --disable-gdb.
SimulAVR
http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/simulavr
Installation
AVaRICE
GitHub: https://github.com/avrdudes/avarice
Installation
Building and Installing under Linux, FreeBSD, and Others
The default behaviour for most of these tools is to install every thing under the /usr/local directory.
In order to keep the AVR tools separate from the base system, it is usually better to install everything
into /usr/local/avr. If the /usr/local/avr directory does not exist, you should create it before trying
to install anything. You will need root access to install there. If you don't have or want root access to
the system, you can alternatively install in your home directory, for example, in $HOME/local/avr. Where
you install is a completely arbitrary decision, but should be consistent for all the tools.
Warning
If you have CC set to anything other than avr-gcc in your environment, this will cause the configure
script to fail. It is best to not have CC set at all.
Note
It is usually the best to use the latest released version of each of the tools.
Preparations
Install Location
You specify the installation directory by using the --prefix=dir option with the configure script. It is
important to install all the AVR tools in the same directory or some of the tools will not work
correctly. To ensure consistency and simplify the discussion, we will use $PREFIX to refer to whatever
directory you wish to install in. You can set this as an environment variable if you wish as such (using
a Bourne-like shell):
$ PREFIX=$HOME/local/avr
$ export PREFIX
Note
Be sure that you have your PATH environment variable set to search the directory you install
everything in before you start installing anything. For example, if you use --prefix=$PREFIX, you
must have $PREFIX/bin in your exported PATH. As such:
$ PATH=$PATH:$PREFIX/bin
$ export PATH
Directory Layout
The instructions below build Binutils, GCC and AVR-LibC outside of the source tree, because:
• When something goes wrong, you can just remove the build directory and start all over again with a
fresh build folder.
• You may want to build the tools with different configure options, e.g. build the tools for a Linux host
and then build a Canadian cross to run on a Windows host.
• GCC does not support configuring anywhere in the source tree, so we'll have to use a separate build
folder outside the source tree, anyway.
The instructions below assume that you have set up a directory tree like
+--source
+--build
in some place where you have write access, like in your home directory.
After successful downloads and builds, the tree will be something like:
+--source
| +--gcc-<version>
| +--binutils-<version>
| +--avr-libc-<version>
+-- build
+--gcc-<version>-avr
+--binutils-<version>-avr
+--avr-libc-<version>
GNU Binutils for the AVR target
The Binutils package provides all the low-level utilities needed in building and manipulating object
files. Once installed, your environment will have an AVR assembler (avr-as), linker (avr-ld), and
librarian (avr-ar and avr-ranlib). In addition, you get tools which extract data from object files (avr-
objcopy), dissassemble object file information (avr-objdump), and strip information from object files
(avr-strip). Before we can build the C compiler, these tools need to be in place.
Download and unpack the source files:
$ # in ./source
$ tar xfj binutils-<version>.tar.bz2
Replace <version> with the version of the package you downloaded.
If you obtained a gzip compressed file (.tar.gz or .tgz), use gunzip instead of bunzip2, or tar xfz
file.tar.gz.
The next step is to configure and build the tools. This is done by supplying arguments to the configure
script that enable the AVR-specific options. When you also want GDB, just drop --disable-gdb.
$ # in ./build
$ mkdir binutils-<version>-avr
$ cd binutils-<version>-avr
$ ../../source/binutils-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr \
--disable-nls --disable-sim --disable-gdb --disable-werror
When configure is run, it generates a lot of messages while it determines what is available on your
operating system. When it finishes, it will have created several Makefiles that are custom tailored to
your platform and that are run with the make command.
$ make
Note
BSD users should note that the project's Makefile uses GNU make syntax. This means FreeBSD users may
need to build the tools by using gmake.
If the tools compiled cleanly, you're ready to install them. If you specified a destination that isn't
owned by your account, you'll need root access to install them. To install:
$ make install
You should now have the programs from Binutils installed into $PREFIX/bin. Don't forget to set your PATH
environment variable before going to build avr-gcc. To check that the correct assembler is found, run
$ avr-as --version
which should print the <version> of the used Binutils sources.
GCC for the AVR target
Warning
You must install avr-binutils and make sure your path is set properly before installing avr-gcc.
Before we can configure the compiler, we have to prepare the sources. GCC depends on some external host
libraries, namely GMP, MPFR, MPC and ISL. You can build and install the appropriate versions of the
required prerequisites by hand and provide their location by means of --with-gmp= etc. Though in most
situations it is easier to let GCC download and build these libraries as part of the configure and build
process. All what's needed is an internet connection when running ./contrib/download_prerequisites:
$ # in ./source
$ tar xfj gcc-<version>.tar.bz2
$ cd gcc-<version>
$ ./contrib/download_prerequisites
$ # in ./build
$ mkdir gcc-<version>-avr
$ cd gcc-<version>-avr
$ ../../source/gcc-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX --target=avr --enable-languages=c,c++ \
--disable-nls --disable-libssp --disable-libcc1 \
--with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-dwarf2
$ make
$ make install # or make install-strip
The GCC binaries may consume quite some disc space. In most cases, you don't need the debug information
in the compiler proper, and installing with
$ make install-strip
can save you some space.
AVR-LibC
Warning
You must install avr-binutils, avr-gcc and make sure your path is set properly before installing AVR-
LibC.
Note
If you have obtained the latest AVR-LibC from git, you will have to run the ./bootstrap script before
using either of the build methods described below.
To build and install AVR-LibC:
$ # in ./source
$ tar xfz avr-libc-<version>.tar.gz
$ # in ./build
$ mkdir avr-libc-<version>
$ cd avr-libc-<version>
$ ../../source/avr-libc-<version>/configure --prefix=$PREFIX \
--build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=avr
$ make
$ make install
Where the --build platform can be guessed by running
$ ./source/avr-libc-<version>/config.guess
AVRDUDE
Note
It has been ported to windows (via MinGW or cygwin), Linux and Solaris. Other Unix systems should be
trivial to port to.
avrdude is part of the FreeBSD ports system. To install it, simply do the following:
# cd /usr/ports/devel/avrdude
# make install
Note
Installation into the default location usually requires root permissions. However, running the
program only requires access permissions to the appropriate ppi(4) device.
Building and installing on other systems should use the configure system, as such:
$ gunzip -c avrdude-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd avrdude-<version>
$ mkdir obj-avr
$ cd obj-avr
$ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX
$ make
$ make install
SimulAVR
SimulAVR also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c simulavr-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd simulavr-<version>
$ mkdir obj-avr
$ cd obj-avr
$ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX
$ make
$ make install
Note
You might want to have already installed avr-binutils, avr-gcc and AVR-LibC if you want to have the
test programs built in the simulavr source.
AVaRICE
Note
These install notes are not applicable to avarice-1.5 or older. You probably don't want to use
anything that old anyways since there have been many improvements and bug fixes since the 1.5
release.
AVaRICE also uses the configure system, so to build and install:
$ gunzip -c avarice-<version>.tar.gz | tar xf -
$ cd avarice-<version>
$ mkdir obj-avr
$ cd obj-avr
$ ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX
$ make
$ make install
Note
AVaRICE uses the BFD library for accessing various binary file formats. You may need to tell the
configure script where to find the lib and headers for the link to work. This is usually done by
invoking the configure script like this (Replace <hdr_path> with the path to the bfd.h file on your
system. Replace <lib_path> with the path to libbfd.a on your system.):
$ CPPFLAGS=-I<hdr_path> LDFLAGS=-L<lib_path> ../configure --prefix=$PREFIX
Building and Installing under Windows
Building and installing the toolchain under Windows requires more effort because all of the tools
required for building, and the programs themselves, are mainly designed for running under a POSIX
environment such as Unix and Linux. Windows does not natively provide such an environment.
There are two projects available that provide such an environment, Cygwin and MinGW. There are advantages
and disadvantages to both. Cygwin provides a very complete POSIX environment that allows one to build
many Linux based tools from source with very little or no source modifications. However, POSIX
functionality is provided in the form of a DLL that is linked to the application. This DLL has to be
redistributed with your application and there are issues if the Cygwin DLL already exists on the
installation system and different versions of the DLL. On the other hand, MinGW can compile code as
native Win32 applications. However, this means that programs designed for Unix and Linux (i.e. that use
POSIX functionality) will not compile as MinGW does not provide that POSIX layer for you. Therefore most
programs that compile on both types of host systems, usually must provide some sort of abstraction layer
to allow an application to be built cross-platform.
MinGW does provide somewhat of a POSIX environment, called MSYS, that allows you to build Unix and Linux
applications as they would normally do, with a configure step and a make step. Cygwin also provides such
an environment. This means that building the AVR toolchain is very similar to how it is built in Linux,
described above. The main differences are in what the PATH environment variable gets set to, pathname
differences, and the tools that are required to build the projects under Windows. We'll take a look at
the tools next.
Tools Required for Building the Toolchain for Windows
These are the tools that are currently used to build an AVR tool chain. This list may change, either the
version of the tools, or the tools themselves, as improvements are made.
MinGW
Download the MinGW Automated Installer, 2013-10-04 (or later)
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files
• Run mingw-get-setup.exe
• In the installation wizard, keep the default values and press the 'Next' button for all installer pages
except for the pages explicitly listed below.
• In the installer page 'Repository Catalogues', select the 'Download latest
repository catalogues' radio button, and press the 'Next' button
• In the installer page 'License Agreement', select the 'I accept
the agreement' radio button, and press the 'Next' button
• In the installer page 'Select Components', be sure to select these items:
• C compiler (default checked)
• C++ compiler
• Ada compiler
• MinGW Developer Toolkit (which includes 'MSYS Basic System').
• Install.
Install Cygwin
Install everything, all users, UNIX line endings. This will take a long time. A fat internet pipe is
highly recommended. It is also recommended that you download all to a directory first, and then
install from that directory to your machine.
Note
GMP, MPFR, MPC and ISL are required to build GCC. By far the easiest way to use them is by letting
GCC download the sources locally by means of running the ./contrib/download_prewrequisites script
from the GCC top source. GCC will configure and build these libs during configure and make.
Doxygen is required to build AVR-LibC documentation.
• Install Doxygen
• Version 1.7.2
• https://www.doxygen.nl
• Download and install.
NetPBM is required to build graphics in the AVR-LibC documentation.
• Install NetPBM
• Version 10.27.0
• From the GNUWin32 project: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html
• Download and install.
fig2dev is required to build graphics in the AVR-LibC documentation.
• Install fig2dev
• Version 3.2 patchlevel 5c
• From WinFig 4.62: http://winfig.com/downloads
• Download the zip file version of WinFig
• Unzip the download file and install fig2dev.exe in a location of your choice, somewhere in the
PATH.
• You may have to unzip and install related DLL files for fig2dev. In the version above, you have
to install QtCore4.dll and QtGui4.dll.
MikTeX is required to build various documentation.
• Install MiKTeX
• Version 2.9
• https://miktex.org
• Download and install.
Ghostscript is required to build various documentation.
• Install Ghostscript
• Version 9.00
• https://www.ghostscript.com
• Download and install.
• In the \bin subdirectory of the installaion, copy gswin32c.exe to gs.exe.
• Set the TEMP and TMP environment variables to c:\\temp or to the short filename version. This helps
to avoid NTVDM errors during building.
Building the Toolchain for Windows
All directories in the PATH environment variable should be specified using their short filename (8.3)
version. This will also help to avoid NTVDM errors during building. These short filenames can be specific
to each machine.
Build the tools below in MinGW/MSYS.
• Binutils
• Open source code package and patch as necessary.
• Configure and build in a directory outside of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• <ghostscript executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• /mingw/bin
• c:/cygwin/bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Configure
CFLAGS=-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS \
../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=avr \
--disable-nls \
--enable-doc \
--datadir=$installdir/doc/binutils \
2>&1 | tee binutils-configure.log
• Make
make all html install install-html 2>&1 | tee binutils-make.log
• Manually change documentation location.
• GCC
• Open source code pacakge and patch as necessary.
• Configure and build in a directory outside of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• <ghostscript executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• /mingw/bin
• c:/cygwin/bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Configure
LDFLAGS='-L /usr/local/lib -R /usr/local/lib' \
CFLAGS='-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS' \
../gcc-$version/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=$target \
--enable-languages=c,c++ \
--with-dwarf2 \
--enable-doc \
--with-docdir=$installdir/doc/$project \
--disable-shared \
--disable-libada \
--disable-libssp \
--disable-libcc1 \
--disable-nls \
2>&1 | tee $project-configure.log
• Make
make all html install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
• AVR-LibC
• Open source code package.
• Configure and build at the top of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• /usr/local/bin
• /mingw/bin
• /bin
• <MikTex executables>
• <install directory>/bin
• <Doxygen executables>
• <NetPBM executables>
• <fig2dev executable>
• <Ghostscript executables>
• c:/cygwin/bin
• Configure
./configure \
--host=avr \
--prefix=$installdir \
--enable-doc \
--disable-versioned-doc \
--enable-html-doc \
--enable-pdf-doc \
--enable-man-doc \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
--datadir=$installdir \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
• Make
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
• Manually change location of man page documentation.
• Move the examples to the top level of the install tree.
• Convert line endings in examples to Windows line endings.
• Convert line endings in header files to Windows line endings.
• AVRDUDE
• Open source code package.
• Configure and build at the top of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• /mingw/bin
• c:/cygwin/bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Set location of LibUSB headers and libraries
export CPPFLAGS='-I../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include'
export CFLAGS='-I../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include'
export LDFLAGS='-L../../libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/lib/gcc'
• Configure
./configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir \
--sysconfdir=$installdir/bin \
--enable-doc \
--disable-versioned-doc \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
• Make
make -k all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
• Convert line endings in avrdude config file to Windows line endings.
• Delete backup copy of avrdude config file in install directory if exists.
• Insight/GDB
• Open source code pacakge and patch as necessary.
• Configure and build in a directory outside of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• /mingw/bin
• c:/cygwin/bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Configure
CFLAGS=-D__USE_MINGW_ACCESS \
LDFLAGS='-static' \
../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--target=avr \
--with-gmp=/usr/local \
--with-mpfr=/usr/local \
--enable-doc \
2>&1 | tee insight-configure.log
• Make
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
• SRecord
• Open source code package.
• Configure and build at the top of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• /mingw/bin
• c:/cygwin/bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Configure
./configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--infodir=$installdir/info \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
2>&1 | tee $package-configure.log
• Make
make all install 2>&1 | tee $package-make.log
Build the tools below in Cygwin.
• AVaRICE
• Open source code package.
• Configure and build in a directory outside of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Set location of LibUSB headers and libraries
export CPPFLAGS=-I$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include
export CFLAGS=-I$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/include
export LDFLAGS='-static -L$startdir/libusb-win32-device-bin-$libusb_version/lib/gcc '
• Configure
../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir/doc \
--mandir=$installdir/man \
--infodir=$installdir/info \
2>&1 | tee avarice-configure.log
• Make
make all install 2>&1 | tee avarice-make.log
• SimulAVR
• Open source code package.
• Configure and build in a directory outside of the source code tree.
• Set PATH, in order:
• <MikTex executables>
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/bin
• /bin
• <install directory>/bin
• Configure
export LDFLAGS='-static'
../$archivedir/configure \
--prefix=$installdir \
--datadir=$installdir \
--disable-tests \
--disable-versioned-doc \
2>&1 | tee simulavr-configure.log
• Make
make -k all install 2>&1 | tee simulavr-make.log
make pdf install-pdf 2>&1 | tee simulavr-pdf-make.log
Canadian Cross Builds
It is also possible to build avr-gcc for host Windows on a Linux build system. Suppose you have installed
a i686-w64-mingw32-gcc toolchain that can compile code to run on host=i686-w64-mingw32. Then the steps to
build a toolchain for Windows are:
1. Build and install the AVR toolchain for the Linux build machine as explained above. Make sure that
running the command
avr-gcc --version
prints the compiler version according to the used GCC sources. The native AVR cross compiler is required
during configure and to build the AVR target libraries like libgcc. Similarly, the version of the found
AVR Binutils programs must match the version of the used Binutils sources.
2. Determine the name of the --build platform like x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, for example by running the
config.guess script as shipped with the top level GCC sources (and also with Binutils sources, and
AVR-LibC sources after ./bootstrap).
3. Use different build and install directories, e.g. ./build/binutils-<version>-avr-mingw32 to build
Binutils and --prefix=$PREFIX-mingw32 as install path.
4. Configure, build and install Binutils and GCC like for the native build, but add the following
configure options:
--build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --host=i686-w64-mingw32
This assumes that the required host libraries like GMP are being built in one go with the compiler. This
is accomplished by running the contrib/download_prerequisites script from the toplevel GCC sources, just
like with the native build.
5. There is no need to build AVR-LibC again because it is a pure target library. It can be installed by
means of running
$ # in ./build/avr-libc-<version>
$ make install prefix=$PREFIX-mingw32
In order to 'install' the toolchain on Windows, the canadian cross installed in $PREFIX-mingw32 can be
moved to the desired location on the Windows computer. The compiler can be used by calling it by its
absolute path, or by adding the $PREFIX-mingw32/bin directory to the PATH environment variable.
Using Git
Most of the sources of the projects above are now managed with the git distributed version-control tools.
When you want to build from the newest development branch, you can clone the repo, like with
$ git clone <repo> [dirname]
Replace <repo> with the URL of the Git repository, e.g. https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc.git for
AVR-LibC. Notice that when building AVR-LibC from the repo source, you have to run ./bootstrap from the
top level AVR-LibC sources prior to configure.
Useful options for git clone:
dirname
Specify an optional directory name for the cloned repository, like:
$ git clone https://github.com/avrdudes/avr-libc.git ./source/avr-libc-main
Without dirname, the name of the git file like avr-libc is used.
--depth 1
An ordinary clone will clone the complete repository with all its branches and their history. To
speed up the cloning and save some disc space, you can just clone the top of the history to some
depth.
--branch branch
The default branch is the head of the latest development, which is master for GCC and Binutils, and
main for AVR-LibC.
When you want a different ref, like GCC's releases/gcc-14 for the head of the GCC v14 branch, or
releases/gcc-14.1.0 for the GCC v14.1 release tag, then you can specify that as branch. To see the
available refs, you can use
$ git ls-remote <repo>
AVR-LibC Version 2.2.1 install_tools(3avr)