Developing with Mac OS X

[ozvena]

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 04:38

I am new to MCUs and have the discovery board on its way. I am reading relating documents and I am overwhelmed as expected. 

One question, are these the recommended steps to setup Mac for development for the discovery board?http://www.nabiltewolde.com/2011/10/using-stm32f4-discovery-board-in-osx.htmlWill I be able to take the full advantage of the MCU with such setup? Or I need to get a PC and install 

IAR Embedded Workbench?

[Tesla DeLorean]

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 06:02

Will I be able to take the full advantage of the MCU with such setup? Or I need to get a PC and install IAR Embedded Workbench?

Well depends a lot on how valuable your time is. You could presumably use a VM like Parallel or VirtualBox. Given a viable laptop/netbook is only a few hundred dollars (US), it's hard to see fighting with other options. Keil or IAR evaluations should permit some effective testing and debugging, with an integrated enviornment. GCC is a viable way to build code, but not something I'd recommend for an initial excursion.

[hpipon957]

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 11:21

Hi

Rowley Crossworks for ARM is available for MAC

http://www.rowley.co.uk/arm/index.htm

Regards Mark

[gbulmer]

Posted on January 10, 2012 at 18:03

I'v just started evaluating Rowley Crossworks (as of yesterday). They give a free 30-day evaluation, and offer a personal edition (for none commercial use) at quite a reasonable price. The license is to a developer, not a machine, which allows you to choose which platform you install on. AFAIK it supports Windows/Mac and Linux.

BUT, we had to dig around the Rowley support site to find the 2.1.2 release which includes the STLINK/V2 support. With that, I have full debug support on the STM32F4-DISCOVERY from my Mac. It lets me debug in C/C++ source, and also see the assembler. It also maintains a CPU cycle count, which is handy to see that my program is doing roughly what I expect.

[ozvena]

Posted on January 12, 2012 at 03:37

Thank you….I will give CrossWorks a 30 days try. I hope for being able to figure it all out in 30 days so I can make more educated decision. MCU is too foreign to me and the steep learning curve is in front of me.

Here is the link to the SW with the 

STLINK/V2 

support.http://rowley.zendesk.com/entries/489017-cortex-m4-support

[ozvena]

Posted on January 20, 2012 at 03:04

I have mixed feelings about CrossWorks.

Even simple things do not work:

When I double click on a variable, I expect it to highlight all occurrences in the source file.

When I use a create folder function for a new project from the tool then I rename the folder, I expect it to rename the folder.

When I right click on an object, and choose Go to definition, I expect the program to go there. Instead I get 'no index loaded' error.

I expect this as well:

http://rowley.zendesk.com/entries/381301-what-about-auto-completion-in-cross-studio

[ozvena]

Posted on January 25, 2012 at 04:41

OK, I have installed VM VirtualBox running Windows XP with IAR Embedded Workbench. My Mac running XP in full screen mode looks like a XP native PC. I am impressed with VM. IAR seems pretty good, but I am still scratching the surface.

I think this is a good setup for Mac users and I would recommend it to anybody starting with embedded SW on OS X.

[ppkettu]

Posted on March 02, 2014 at 12:48

I have an XP setup under VMware Fusion. When tried IAR, the licensing didn't work.

''Failed to request licenses. Could not get the right locking code. Failed to get the machine ID for locking criteria 0x2000. ... '' I think I'll just try the Keil MDK-ARM