nuttx/Documentation/quickstart/install.rst

.. include:: /substitutions.rst
.. _install:

==========
Installing
==========

The first step to get started with NuttX is to install a series of required tools,
a toolchain for the architecture you will be working with and, finally, download
NuttX source code itself.

Prerequisites
=============

First, install the following set of system dependencies according to your Operating System:

.. tabs::

  .. tab:: Linux (debian based)

    Run the following command to install packages:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ sudo apt install \
      $ bison flex gettext texinfo libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev xxd \
      $ gperf automake libtool pkg-config build-essential gperf genromfs \
      $ libgmp-dev libmpc-dev libmpfr-dev libisl-dev binutils-dev libelf-dev \
      $ libexpat-dev gcc-multilib g++-multilib picocom u-boot-tools util-linux

  .. tab:: Linux (Fdora / RPM based)

    Run the following command to install packages:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ sudo dnf install \
      $ bison flex gettext texinfo ncurses-devel ncurses ncurses-compat-libs \
      $ gperf automake libtool pkgconfig @development-tools gperf genromfs \
      $ gmp-devel mpfr-devel libmpc-devel isl-devel binutils-devel elfutils-libelf-devel \
      $ expat-devel gcc-c++ g++ picocom uboot-tools util-linux

  .. tab:: macOS
  
    Run the following command to install packages:  

    .. code-block:: console

      $ brew tap discoteq/discoteq
      $ brew install flock
      $ brew install x86_64-elf-gcc  # Used by simulator
      $ brew install u-boot-tools  # Some platform integrate with u-boot

  .. tab:: Windows / WSL

    If you are are building Apache NuttX on Windows and using WSL follow
    that installation guide for Linux.  This has been verified against the
    Ubuntu 18.04 version.

    There may be complications interacting with
    programming tools over USB.  Recently support for USBIP was added to WSL 2
    which has been used with the STM32 platform, but it is not trivial to configure:
    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/connect-usb

  .. tab:: Windows/Cygwin

    Download and install `Cygwin <https://www.cygwin.com/>`_ using the minimal
    installation in addition to these packages::

        make              bison             libmpc-devel
        gcc-core          byacc             automake-1.15
        gcc-g++           gperf             libncurses-devel
        flex              gdb               libmpfr-devel
        git               unzip             zlib-devel

KConfig frontend
----------------

NuttX configuration system uses `KConfig <https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kbuild/kconfig-language.txt>`_
which is exposed via a series of interactive menu-based *frontends*, part of the
``kconfig-frontends`` package. Depending on your OS you may use a precompiled
package or you will have to build it from source, which is available in the
`NuttX tools repository <https://bitbucket.org/nuttx/tools/src/master/kconfig-frontends/>`_:

.. tabs::

  .. code-tab:: console Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and later

    $ sudo apt install kconfig-frontends

  .. code-tab:: console Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and earlier

    $ git clone https://bitbucket.org/nuttx/tools.git
    $ cd tools/kconfig-frontends
    $ ./configure --enable-mconf --disable-nconf --disable-gconf --disable-qconf
    $ make
    $ make install

  .. code-tab:: console Fedora

    $ git clone https://bitbucket.org/nuttx/tools.git
    $ cd tools/kconfig-frontends
    $ ./configure --enable-mconf --disable-nconf --disable-gconf --disable-qconf
    $ aclocal
    $ automake
    $ make
    $ sudo make install

  .. code-tab:: console macOS

    $ git clone https://bitbucket.org/nuttx/tools.git
    $ cd tools/kconfig-frontends
    $ patch < ../kconfig-macos.diff -p 1
    $ ./configure --enable-mconf --disable-shared --enable-static --disable-gconf --disable-qconf --disable-nconf
    $ make
    $ sudo make install

NuttX also supports `kconfiglib <https://github.com/ulfalizer/Kconfiglib>`_ by
default, which is a Kconfig tool implemented in Python 2/3. Compared with
``kconfig-frontends``, kconfiglib provides NuttX with the possibility of
multi-platform support(configure NuttX in Winodws native/Visual Studio), and also
``kconfiglib`` has a stronger Kconfig syntax check, this will help developers to avoid
some Kconfig syntax errors.  Install kconfiglib via following command:

.. code-block:: shell

  pip install kconfiglib

If you are a working on Windows, which also need the support of windows-curses:

.. code-block:: shell

  pip install windows-curses

.. tip::
  It should be noted that kconfiglib does not support **modules** attributes.
  (https://github.com/ulfalizer/Kconfiglib/blob/master/kconfiglib.py#L3239-L3254,
  the community seems to have stopped updating), if the features depends on
  ``CONFIG_BUILD_LOADABLE``, kconfiglib may not be a good choice.

Toolchain
=========

To build Apache NuttX you need the appropriate toolchain
according to your target platform. Some Operating Systems
such as Linux distribute toolchains for various architectures.
This is usually an easy choice however you should be aware
that in some cases the version offered by your OS may have
problems and it may be better to use a widely used build from
another source.

The following example shows how to install a toolchain for
ARM architecture:

.. tabs::

  .. code-tab:: console Ubuntu (deb)

    $ sudo apt install gcc-arm-none-eabi binutils-arm-none-eabi

  .. tab:: macOS

    For 32 bit ARM targets, such as STM32:

    .. code-block:: console
      
      $ brew install --cask gcc-arm-embedded

    For 64 bit ARM targets, such as Allwinner A64:

    .. code-block:: console
      
      $ brew install --cask gcc-aarch64-embedded

  .. tab:: From arm.com

    First, create a directory to hold the toolchain:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ usermod -a -G users $USER
      $ # get a login shell that knows we're in this group:
      $ su - $USER
      $ sudo mkdir /opt/gcc
      $ sudo chgrp -R users /opt/gcc
      $ sudo chmod -R u+rw /opt/gcc
      $ cd /opt/gcc

    Download and extract toolchain:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ HOST_PLATFORM=x86_64-linux   # use 'aarch64-linux' for ARM64 Linux, or 'mac' for Intel macOS
      $ # For Windows there is a zip instead (gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10-win32.zip)
      $ curl -L -O https://armkeil.blob.core.windows.net/developer/Files/downloads/gnu-rm/10.3-2021.10/gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10-${HOST_PLATFORM}.tar.bz2
      $ tar xf gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10-${HOST_PLATFORM}.tar.bz2

    Add the toolchain to your `PATH`:

    .. code-block:: console

      $ echo "export PATH=/opt/gcc/gcc-arm-none-eabi-10.3-2021.10/bin:$PATH" >> ~/.bashrc

    You can edit your shell's rc files if you don't use bash.

.. tip::
  There are hints on how to get the latest tool chains for most supported
  architectures in the Apache NuttX CI helper
  `script <https://github.com/apache/nuttx/tree/master/tools/ci/cibuild.sh>`_
  and Docker `container <https://github.com/apache/nuttx/tree/master/tools/ci/docker/linux/Dockerfile>`_
  
.. todo::
  Required toolchain should be part of each arch documentation (see `relevant issue <https://github.com/apache/nuttx/issues/2409>`_).

Download NuttX
==============

Apache NuttX is actively developed on GitHub. There are two main repositories,
`nuttx <https://github.com/apache/nuttx>`_ and `apps <https://github.com/apache/nuttx-apps>`_,
where the latter is technically optional (but recommended for complete set of
features). If you intend to contribute changes, you need the absolute latest
version or you simply prefer to work using git, you should clone these
repositories (recommended). Otherwise you can choose to download any
`stable release <https://nuttx.apache.org/download/>`_ archive.

.. tabs::

  .. tab:: Clone git repositories
  
    .. code-block:: console

       $ mkdir nuttxspace
       $ cd nuttxspace
       $ git clone https://github.com/apache/nuttx.git nuttx
       $ git clone https://github.com/apache/nuttx-apps apps

    The development source code is also available as a compressed archive, should you need it:

    .. code-block:: console

       $ mkdir nuttxspace
       $ cd nuttxspace
       $ curl -L https://github.com/apache/nuttx/tarball/master -o nuttx.tar.gz 
       $ curl -L https://github.com/apache/nuttx-apps/tarball/master -o apps.tar.gz
       $ tar zxf nuttx.tar.gz --one-top-level=nuttx --strip-components 1
       $ tar zxf apps.tar.gz --one-top-level=apps --strip-components 1
       
    There are also ``.zip`` archives available (useful for Windows users): just replace ``tarball`` with
    ``zipball``.

  .. tab:: Download stable release
  
    Go to `releases <https://nuttx.apache.org/download/>`_ and choose a version to download. The following
    example uses version 12.2.1:

    .. code-block:: console
    
       $ mkdir nuttxspace
       $ cd nuttxspace
       $ curl -L https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.lua/nuttx/12.2.1/apache-nuttx-12.2.1.tar.gz?action=download -o nuttx.tar.gz
       $ curl -L https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.lua/nuttx/12.2.1/apache-nuttx-apps-12.2.1.tar.gz?action=download -o apps.tar.gz
       $ tar zxf nuttx.tar.gz
       $ tar zxf apps.tar.gz