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Installing Catalina on Linux to /opt — Parallax Forums

Installing Catalina on Linux to /opt

Hello,

I just ordered a Propeller 1 board and would like to develop software for it using the C-Language.
Since the GCC-Port is totally outdated and cannot be compiled with modern GCCs, I found the alternative Catalina.

Sadly the current state of documentation is focusing on "just get it to work with Code::Blocks".
I do a lot of embedded systems hacking and therefore I use lots of different architecture. To keep my system clean I install all cross compilers and platform related tools to /opt/$ARCH/.
The installation process of Catalina seems to be a bit unusual. Beside the fact that it needs $PATH pointing to precompiled versions of the binaries that should be compiled, I cannot figure out how to set the destination directory.

I also found some worrying lines in the makefiles I looked at. There the -m32 option is used. Do I have to edit something to get 64bit binaries? I use a "modern" 64bit Linux which of cause cannot run old 32bit binaries.

So, my question is: How can I build a 64Bit catalina and install it to /opt/propeller/.?

Maybe I also ask the wrong questions. Is this the right C compiler at all? or is there a third, better alternative?
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Comments

  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    Catalina is currently expecting to be installed in /usr/local/lib - I was planning to change that to /opt on the next release, but I haven't done that yet. If you want to install it there you can, but you will need to set the LCCDIR environment variable. Also, I have not tested building it anywhere other than in /usr/local/lib/catalina - again, something I was planning to do on the next release.

    Once installed (e.g. to /usr/local/lib/catalina), execute "source /usr/local/lib/catalina/use_catalina" and you should be good to go!

    Ross.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    Maybe I also ask the wrong questions. Is this the right C compiler at all? or is there a third, better alternative?

    Difficult one to answer. At this point, I think it is your best option - but I am a little biased! :)
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    I also found some worrying lines in the makefiles I looked at. There the -m32 option is used. Do I have to edit something to get 64bit binaries? I use a "modern" 64bit Linux which of cause cannot run old 32bit binaries.

    I used to compile and release both 32 and 64 bit versions, but now I don't bother. However, Catalina has certainly been tested on both.

    Ross.
  • Thank you for the quick response.
    I will try this as soon as I have some time (maybe tomorrow).
    I'll post the steps I went/tried :smile:
  • RalfSt wrote: »
    I just ordered a Propeller 1 board and would like to develop software for it using the C-Language.
    Since the GCC-Port is totally outdated and cannot be compiled with modern GCCs, I found the alternative Catalina.

    What about a pre-compiled package ?
    http://david.zemon.name:8111/project.html?projectId=PropGCC&tab=projectOverview

    And as far as I know, it can be compiled without problems with at least Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, not sure with later releases.
    What OS are you using ?
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    Thank you for the quick response.
    I will try this as soon as I have some time (maybe tomorrow).
    I'll post the steps I went/tried :smile:

    I just moved my current installation to /opt and it works ok (as I mentioned, you have to manually set LCCDIR).

    Also, you will have to manually reset the compiler toolchain executable directory in Code::Blocks (see Settings->Compiler->Toolchain Executables").

    I will try building it in /opt in the next few days and make sure there are no script dependencies on the build location.

    Ross.

    P.S. - the current release was compiled and run it a 64-bit Ubuntu machine.
  • RalfSt wrote: »
    Since the GCC-Port is totally outdated and cannot be compiled with modern GCCs, I found the alternative Catalina.
    I just made a clone of the current propgcc repository and was able to build it on the Mac under Xcode with a minor update to the fix-xcode-warnings.sh file. I've checked in the change.
    This should work with the latest version of Xcode:
    source fix-xcode-warnings.sh
    make
    


  • Where did you check in the change? My build server didn't kick off a new build.
  • NVM. I see it's in the parallax propgcc repo. My server is tracking your repo: https://github.com/dbetz/propeller-gcc
    Any chance you want to copy the change over?
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    I have just rebuilt Catalina on Ubuntu 16.04 (64 bit) with Catalina unpacked into /opt/catalina, and everything seems to be fine as long as you remember to first set the LCCDIR environment variable - e.g:
    export LCCDIR=/opt/catalina
    

    I will make this the default location in the next release.
  • I tried to build LCC but it failed - maybe:

    Preparation as root:
    mkdir /opt/pxc
    chown -R ralf:ralf /opt/pxc
    

    Preparation as user:
    cd ~/downloads
    unzip Catalina_3.15.4_Linux.zip
    cd catalina/source
    export LCCDIR=/opt/pxc
    ./build_all
    

    failed:
    ERROR: Catalina does not appear to be installed in /opt/pxc
    Set the environment variable LCCDIR to where Catalina is installed.
    

    Why does build_all expect an already build and installed Catalina?
    I let it just point to the bin-directory in the zip archive where only windows executables and 32 Bit Linux executables that I cannot run on my Machine.
    Then I repeat the build process with updated LCCDIR
    export LCCDIR=$PWD/../.
    ./build_all
    

    Then the build process seems to succeed - It does not exit with an error message.
    But I don't know where the binaries are.
    In the catalina/bin directory are still 32bit executables.

    In the last three lines of the build-process-output I saw "cp script/test_prelude bin/test_prelude".
    So I just searched for this file:
    find . -iname "test_prelude"
    ./source/srecord/srecord-1.55/bin/test_prelude
    # ...
    

    So the obviously build_all just builds the sources and there is a further step necessary to install the binary and script files.
    I did not find any notes about this in the README.linux.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    Why does build_all expect an already build and installed Catalina?

    Yes, sorry about that. This is of course always true on my machine. I'll fix that poor bit of bootstrapping in the full release.

    In the meantime, just create a file - any file, even just an empty text file - called "catalina" in the /opt/pxc/bin directory. The scripts check that to make sure that LCCDIR points to something that exists, but I shouldn't be assuming that the catalina binary itself exists!

    Then everything should work as expected.

  • It's going in the right direction, but still does not fully work.

    My current process:

    Preparation as root:
    mkdir -p /opt/pxc/bin
    chown -R ralf:ralf /opt/pxc
    

    Preparation as user:
    cd ~/downloads
    unzip Catalina_3.15.4_Linux.zip
    cd catalina/source
    export LCCDIR=/opt/pxc
    touch /opt/pxc/bin/catalina
    ./build_all
    chmod +x /opt/pxc/bin/catalina
    

    As you see in the last command line, I have to explicitly set the executable-flag for catalina.
    This is because touch crates a file without exec-permissions, and during the installation only the file-content gets updated, not the whole file.
    But this should change when the touch-workaround is not necessary anymore.

    My installation directory now looks like this: (/opt/pxc)
    .
    └── bin
        ├── bindump
        ├── blackbox
        ├── catalina
        ├── catbind
        ├── catdbgfilegen
        ├── p2asm
        ├── payload
        ├── spinc
        ├── srec_cat
        ├── srec_cmp
        └── srec_info
    
    1 directory, 11 files
    

    When I execute catalina I get the following error:
    Catalina Compiler 3.15
    sh: lcc: Kommando nicht gefunden.
    
  • Problem found:
    I just run build_all from the lcc-directory and got the following error:
    /usr/include/gnu/stubs.h:7:11: schwerwiegender Fehler: gnu/stubs-32.h: File not found
    

    The overall-build_all script does not check if the called build_all-scripts succeeded.
    You could add something like this:
    cd ../lcc
    ./build_all
    if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
        echo -e "\e[1;31mBuilding lcc failed!\e[0m"
        exit 1
    fi
    
    # ...
    

    The problem with stubs-32.h is, that is only available in 32bit versions of the libc says the GCC FAQ.
    Of cause a 64bit System does not provide this if you not explicitly install the multilib-version which then comes with a complete 32bit subsystem.

    I tried to remove the "-m32" flags from the lccs makefile, but now I get the following error:
    Fatal error: can't create /opt/pxc/source/lcc/build/lcc.o: File not found
    

    I also found a warning:
    custom.mk:2: Warning: Old commands for target „install“ will be ignored
    
  • RalfStRalfSt Posts: 19
    edited 2019-07-04 11:58
    Hm… I see the problem. The LCCDIR variable is used for at least two totally different purposes.

    1.: It indicated the directory the binaries installation directory.
    2.: It points to the root directory of the source code in that the temporary object files will be created.

    These are the changes I applied to the lcc/makefile (line 11, 12, 20):
      7 ifeq ($(OS),Darwin)
      8     CFLAGS=-g -m32
      9     LDFLAGS=-g
     10 else
     11     CFLAGS=-g -static
     12     LDFLAGS=-g -static-libgcc
     13 endif
     14 
     15 ifeq ("$(LCCDIR)", "")
     16    BINDIR=/usr/local/lib/catalina/bin
     17    BUILDDIR=/usr/local/lib/catalina/source/lcc/build
     18 else
     19    BINDIR=$(LCCDIR)/bin
     20    BUILDDIR=./build
     21 endif
    

    Now lcc builds.


    Next problem:
    catalina --help
    Catalina Compiler 3.15
    lcc: /usr/local/lib/catalina/bin/catbind: No such file or directory
    

    There are some hard-coded pathes…
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    edited 2019-07-04 12:19
    RalfSt wrote: »
    When I execute catalina I get the following error:
    Catalina Compiler 3.15
    sh: lcc: Kommando nicht gefunden.
    

    Yes, I can see that a whole bunch of files - not just the lcc files - are missing from your "bin" directory.

    It appears you are unzipping Catalina in your downloads directory but then setting the LCCDIR to where you want the output of the build to go. That will not work. The build needs to be done in the catalina subdirectory you just unzipped. One reason is that there is a whole bunch of support files that you need, not just the binaries.

    Go to where you unzipped the distribution - your download directory is fine - then set the LCCDIR environment variable to the catalina subdirectory, and build it there. You can later copy (or move) the entire contents of the catalina subdirectory to /opt/pxc if you like, and then set your LCCDIR environment variable to that directory.

    Also, one thing that you will find in the bin directory of the distribution is a "Set_Linux_Permissions" script that should help you with some file permission problems.

    Here is what I mean:
    cd ~/downloads
    unzip Catalina_3.15.4_Linux.zip
    export LCCDIR=~/downloads/catalina
    $LCCDIR/bin/Set_Linux_Permissions
    cd $LCCDIR/source
    ./build_all
    

    I think this will solve your problem. Even simpler might be to unzip the distribution to /opt in the first place, rename catalina to pxc and build it "in situ".

    Let me know how you go!

    EDIT: I just realized you shouldn't need the "touch" and "chmod" commands.
  • RalfStRalfSt Posts: 19
    edited 2019-07-04 12:44
    I had just fixed the last problem mentioned above (the hard-coded path).
    The problem is, that etc/catalina_linux.c seems not to be informed that LCCDIR ist defined and so the #ifndef statement gets true and LCCDIR gets overwritten with the default value.
    I did a further modification of the makefile:
     11     CFLAGS=-g -static -DLCCDIR="\"$(LCCDIR)\""
    

    The problem of your proposed approach is, that the permissions are all set to executable when unzipping the zip file. (This can be solved by using tar as archive format).
    As I see in the Set_Linux_Permissions script, there also for all files, everyone has not only execution-permission but even worse, everyone get write permission. (a+wx).
    This is an administrative and a security nightmare.
    I'd prefer a clean and tidy installation where only programs have execution-permissions and nobody except me has write access :smile:


    Next problem solved:
    missing build_all call in the overall build_all scripts: lib/build_all -- EDIT: Sorry, is called in the script, but it seems not to be executed for some reason…
    Is it correct that only directories with "_p2" suffix (Propeller V2?) were created?

    Further big problem:
    The build process of srecord is completely broken.
    There the LCCDIR variable gets not applied inside the configure and make process.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    I had just fixed the last problem mentioned above (the hard-coded path).
    The problem is, that etc/catalina_linux.c seems not to be informed that LCCDIR ist defined and so the #ifndef statement gets true and LCCDIR gets overwritten with the default value.

    This won't matter if you set the LCCDIR environment variable. That overrides any hard-coded path.

    You shouldn't need to do any source or script modifications if you follow the instructions I posted above.

    And yes, I should release a tar package instead of a zip file. I do that for the "official" releases (the last one was 3.13.2), but am not spending a lot of time on packaging in this current stream of P2 releases. There's too much other stuff to do.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    One last thing:

    There is a script to add the catalina directory to your path:
    export LCCDIR=/opt/pxc
    source $LCCDIR/use_catalina
    
  • RalfStRalfSt Posts: 19
    edited 2019-07-04 13:36
    I now downloaded the old 3.13.2 version.
    The permission are also all a+wx, but at least the binaries are 64bit.

    I'll try to install it properly tomorrow and will post the steps in this thread.

    Many thanks so far.
    RossH wrote: »
    One last thing:

    There is a script to add the catalina directory to your path:
    export LCCDIR=/opt/pxc
    source $LCCDIR/use_catalina
    
    I have a script in /etc/profile.d where all my cross compilers were added to the PATH-variable. I also added the path to /opt/pxc/bin there :wink:
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    edited 2019-07-05 00:25
    RalfSt wrote: »
    I now downloaded the old 3.13.2 version.
    The permission are also all a+wx, but at least the binaries are 64bit.

    I'll try to install it properly tomorrow and will post the steps in this thread.

    Many thanks so far.

    That's probably a good idea, although the binaries in the 3.15.4 release were also built and tested on a 64 bit system, so if they didn't work for you then you may still have to recompile.

    If you do have to do so, please follow the build instructions (similar to the ones I wrote above) in README.Linux file.

    You should not have to modify any sources or scripts.

    Ross.
  • Well…
    The first modification of the makefile was mandatory to remove the flags that makes GCC build a 32bit version.
    The second one was necessary to propagate the shell environment variable LCCDIR to the C preprocessor.

    The old 3.13.4 version also contains only a 32 bit version of lcc. So these binaries also don't work.

    In fact getting Catalina to work is too time consuming and the current software state is a bit too "wild" and experimental.
    I will stop trying it at this point and go a different direction. A C-Compiler would have bin nice, but for my purpose the assembler and programmer will be enough.
    Nevertheless I'll follow the progress of Catalina and give it a chance with the next releases.
    Thank you very much for your support.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    Well…
    The first modification of the makefile was mandatory to remove the flags that makes GCC build a 32bit version.
    The second one was necessary to propagate the shell environment variable LCCDIR to the C preprocessor.

    The old 3.13.4 version also contains only a 32 bit version of lcc. So these binaries also don't work.

    In fact getting Catalina to work is too time consuming and the current software state is a bit too "wild" and experimental.
    I will stop trying it at this point and go a different direction. A C-Compiler would have bin nice, but for my purpose the assembler and programmer will be enough.
    Nevertheless I'll follow the progress of Catalina and give it a chance with the next releases.
    Thank you very much for your support.

    You seem to be confusing "32 bit versions" with "built to run on a 32 bit version of Linux". I no longer even have a 32 bit version of Linux - the current binaries (13.5.4) were compiled on a 64 bit version of Linux using a 64 bit version of GCC, and will run correctly on a 64 bit version of Linux, whether or not they are 32 or 64 bit applications. Ditto for the 64 bit distributions of the earlier versions.

    At present, I run Ubuntu 16.04 (64 bit) and nothing else. If the binaries in the distributions do not run on your installation, it is most likely because they were compiled for a different flavour of Linux, and not because they were compiled as 32 bit or 64 bit. All you need to do is recompile them.

    If you follow the simple instructions I have provided, you can get Catalina working on your version of Linux. It is not necessary to change any source files or scripts. LCC is not really a 64 bit application in any case, and so trying to modify the scripts to compile it as 64 bit application is neither necessary nor particularly desirable.

    Ross.

  • I see there is a misunderstanding. I think Ubuntu (64bit) comes with support for 32 bit applications.
    I run Arch Linux that (by default) does not support executing 32 bit applications at all. Which is quiet common for non-debian-bases distributions.
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    I see there is a misunderstanding. I think Ubuntu (64bit) comes with support for 32 bit applications.
    I run Arch Linux that (by default) does not support executing 32 bit applications at all. Which is quiet common for non-debian-bases distributions.

    So you want to compile programs for a 32 bit microcontroller, but you don't want to enable 32 bit support on Arch Linux?

    I suggest you wait until Parallax releases a 64 bit version of the Propeller :)
  • What does the host architecture have to do with the target architecture? :smile:
    I also write programs for 8bit architectures on my 64 bit Linux.

    My laptop has a 64 bit CPU and I see no reason why I should use a deprecated instruction set from the 90th for it. :wink:
  • RossHRossH Posts: 5,336
    RalfSt wrote: »
    What does the host architecture have to do with the target architecture?.

    Exactly.
  • @RalfSt not to derail the thread, but have you tried fastspin / spin2cpp? It's developed natively on Linux and the build procedure is easy:
    git clone https://github.com/totalspectrum/spin2cpp
    cd spin2cpp
    make
    # output is in build/fastspin and build/spin2cpp
    
    Despite the name fastspin can compile not only Spin but also BASIC and C. The C support is still a bit rough, it's not as nice as Catalina, but you may find it easier to install on your ArchLinux setup. (There's no "make install" yet but just copy build/* to $INSTALLDIR/bin/ and include/* to $INSTALLDIR/include/).

  • ersmith wrote: »
    @RalfSt not to derail the thread, but have you tried fastspin / spin2cpp? It's developed natively on Linux and the build procedure is easy:
    git clone https://github.com/totalspectrum/spin2cpp
    cd spin2cpp
    make
    # output is in build/fastspin and build/spin2cpp
    
    Despite the name fastspin can compile not only Spin but also BASIC and C. The C support is still a bit rough, it's not as nice as Catalina, but you may find it easier to install on your ArchLinux setup. (There's no "make install" yet but just copy build/* to $INSTALLDIR/bin/ and include/* to $INSTALLDIR/include/).
    Why not create two links to the "fastspin" executable called "fastbasic" and "fastc" to make it clearer that those three languages are supported?
  • Why not create two links to the "fastspin" executable called "fastbasic" and "fastc" to make it clearer that those three languages are supported?
    Excellent suggestion.

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