RE: [avr-libc-dev] newbie question - attiny88 on Ubuntu

[Weddington, Eric]

Hi Allan,

Answers are interleaved below. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: 
> address@hidden 
> [mailto:address@hidden
> org] On Behalf Of Allan Macdonald
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 8:44 AM
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: [avr-libc-dev] newbie question - attiny88 on Ubuntu
> 
> 
> crc.c:1: error: MCU 'attiny88' supported for assembler only
> 
> I am a little confused as to why this happens on Linux and not in
> WinAVR.  

You will typically get this message if support for that device is missing in 
your toolchain build.

> The version of avr-gcc installed on my machine is 4.2.2.
> This is the version that was available in the repositories that are
> offered by default.  I got it by going into my Synaptic Package
> Manager, finding all the avr-related packages such as gcc, gdb,
> avrdude, etc, and installing them.
> 
> I don't know what to do or who to ask to fix this.  My apologies if
> this is the wrong list in which to be asking these questions.  If
> there is a better list or forum to post this, please let me know.
> 
> Questions:
> 
> - What would be the easiest way for me to fix this?

Unfortunately, the easiest way depends on your skill level.

> - Should I download and build the latest tarball for avr-gcc sources?

That would certainly be the best way, though not the easiest if you have never 
done this before.

> - Is there a pre-compiled binary available somewhere?
> - Should I be contacting whoever maintains the dell and ubuntu
> repositories to get them to commit the latest versions of avr-gcc
> packages?

I'm not familiar enough with ubuntu to know if there are pre-compiled binaries 
somewhere. Contacting the maintainers is certainly a good idea, though see more 
below.

> 
> Other questions:
> 
> Who maintains avr-gcc anyway?  Is it the same people that maintain the
> AVR-libc project?   Do these go hand-in-hand?

There are 2 official port maintainers for the AVR port: Denis Chertykov, who is 
not very active; and Anatoly Sokolov, who is very active. There are other 
people who also work on avr-gcc as well, though not very many (myself 
included). Yes, it is generally the same people who work on avr-gcc that work 
on avr-libc. Yes, they kind of go hand-in-hand, in the sense that avr-libc is 
the Standard C library for the AVR, and so it has to be used with the compiler 
(and assembler and linker).

> How is this different from the cross-gcc project (crosstool, etc)?

I'm not sure what you mean by "cross-gcc project", however, I am familiar with 
crosstool. Crosstool does not have support for building the AVR, though I spoke 
with Dan Kegel (the author) many years ago about doing it sometime. It never 
came to fruition.

> How is this different from the WinAVR project?

The WinAVR project is an AVR toolchain distribution that is hosted on Windows, 
which I manage. Other people manage other distributions. Joerg Wunsch manages 
the FreeBSD distribution. Other people manage the distribution on Mac OS X. 
Currently there is no single person managing Linux distributions. There are 
different people who maintain packages on different Linux distros, though they 
don't seem to be very active here. And for completeness, it is known that the 
toolchain can be built on Solaris and NetBSD, though I don't know of any 
official maintainers.

Something to note: Each release of WinAVR has many outside patches to the 
toolchain, either to fix bugs, add new features, or (mostly) add support for 
new devices. This is probably what you have run into: WinAVR has support for a 
device that is not yet available on your Linux-based AVR toolchain. Joerg 
Wunsch and I try to keep in sync in terms of what patches to include in our 
distributions of the toolchain. The people who take care of the Mac OS X 
distribution base their releases on the WinAVR patches as well (to be 
bug-for-bug compatible). On the AVR Freaks website (www.avrfreaks.net), there 
is an AVR GCC Forum with a sticky post that contains a very well maintained 
build script for Linux, that is also based on the WinAVR patches (both Joerg 
and I know the person who maintains it). That build script is the first place 
that we refer to people who want to build their own AVR toolchain on Linux.

It would be nice if the various Linux package maintainers would be more 
actively involved that way they can stay up to date with the latest patches.

HTH,
Eric Weddington