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xPack OpenOCD v0.12.0-6 released

· 4 min read
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)
Liviu Ionescu (ilg)

Version 0.12.0-6.1 is a maintenance release; it fixes a small bug in the previous release.

The xPack OpenOCD is a standalone cross-platform binary distribution of OpenOCD.

There are separate binaries for Windows (x64), macOS (x64 and arm64) and GNU/Linux (x64, arm64, arm).

Raspberry Pi

The main targets for the GNU/Linux Arm binaries are the Raspberry Pi class devices (armv7l and aarch64; armv6 is not supported).

Download​

The binary files can be downloaded automatically with xpm or manually from GitHub Releases.

Prerequisites​

  • x64 Windows: Windows 7 with the Universal C Runtime (UCRT), Windows 8, Windows 10, Windows 11
  • x64 macOS: 10.13 or later
  • arm64 macOS: 11.6 or later
  • x64 GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)
  • arm64/arm GNU/Linux: any system with GLIBC 2.27 or higher (like Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu 18 or later, Debian 10 or later, RedHat 8 or later, Fedora 29 or later, etc)

Install​

The easiest way to install this specific version, is by using xpm:

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/openocd@0.12.0-6.1 --verbose

Comprehensive instructions for installing xPack OpenOCD on different platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

The xPack OpenOCD is based on the official OpenOCD sources.

The current version is based on:

Changes​

There are no functional changes.

Compared to the upstream, the following changes were applied:

  • the src/openocd.c file was edited to display the branding string
  • the contrib/60-openocd.rules file was simplified to avoid protection related issues (the GROUP and TAG definitions were removed).

Bug fixes​

  • [#34]: due to a bug in the upstream openocd, the openocd/angie folder had two trailing spaces, which prevented install in some special configurations; fixed.

Enhancements​

  • none

Known problems​

  • none

Documentation​

The original OpenOCD documentation is available from the project web site:

Build​

The binaries for all supported platforms (Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux) were built using the xPack Build Box (XBB), a set of build environments based on slightly older distributions, that should be compatible with most recent systems.

For the prerequisites and more details on the build procedure, please see the Maintainer Info page.

CI tests​

Before publishing, a set of simple tests were performed on an exhaustive set of platforms. The results are available from:

Tests​

For more tests, install the package with xpm.

The simple test, consists in starting the binaries only to identify the STM32F4DISCOVERY board.

~/Library/xPacks/@xpack-dev-tools/openocd/0.12.0-6.1/.content/bin/openocd -f board/stm32f4discovery.cfg

A more complex test consist in programming and debugging a simple blinky application on the STM32F4DISCOVERY board. The binaries were those generated by simple Eclipse projects available in the xPack GNU Arm Embedded GCC project.

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

4f458dea82af3529d4dc71544abfd8c8c96ebe6c521868f87c6697b0866c9e99
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-darwin-arm64.tar.gz

aa5052790b003f18e64691a3b8b7a650d4ce54f72fbbb23f1aed2d26a5795b76
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-darwin-x64.tar.gz

ff7ba12cc72f46b686d249dbe1131cc0e8e7ffeffbcc06d2290f0db203d412f3
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-linux-arm.tar.gz

46cca363793d35b65d815c0b9ddff765a082cfdf226868390eef69132368aa3d
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-linux-arm64.tar.gz

7e762af5f9a4f21ac03130ddce36acf996f3e67c4ee1526ed3d4f8ad89e65c77
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-linux-x64.tar.gz

c57724f87219bafde78f61b54fb7f303f456fed9826a3d0ee2d54d461ad58020
xpack-openocd-0.12.0-6-win32-x64.zip

Folders hierarchy​

After install, the package creates a hierarchy of folders like the following (only the first two depth levels are shown):

C:> tree /f %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\xPacks\@xpack-dev-tools\openocd\0.12.0-6.1\.content
Folder PATH listing
Volume serial number is B02D-925C
├── README.md
├── bin
│   ├── libftdi1.dll
│   ├── libusb-1.0.dll
│   └── openocd.exe
├── distro-info
│   └── licenses
└── openocd
  ├── OpenULINK
  ├── angie
  ├── contrib
  └── scripts

8 directories, 4 files

Deprecation notices​

GNU/Linux minimum requirements​

The minimum requirement is GLIBC 2.27, available starting with Ubuntu 18, Debian 10 and RedHat 8. Support for RedHat 7 was dropped in 2022.

32-bit support​

Support for 32-bit x86 GNU/Linux and x86 Windows was dropped in 2022.

Pre-deprecation notice for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux​

Due to the large user base of 32-bit Raspberry Pi systems, support for 32-bit Arm GNU/Linux (armv7l) will be preserved for a little while, but expect it to be dropped by 2025, so it is recommended to consider an upgrade to a RPi 4 or 5 with at least 4 GB (preferably 8 GB) of RAM.

Pre-deprecation notice for Ubuntu 18.04​

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver reached the end of the standard five-year maintenance window for Long-Term Support (LTS) release on 31 May 2023.

As a courtesy, the xPack GNU/Linux releases will continue to be based on Ubuntu 18.04 for another year.

From 2025 onwards, the GNU/Linux binaries will be built on Debian 10, (GLIBC 2.28), and are also expected to run on RedHat 8.

Users are urged to update their build and test infrastructure to ensure a smooth transition to the next xPack releases.

Analytics​

Credit to Shields IO for the badges and to Somsubhra/github-release-stats for the individual file counters.