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xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC v8.2.0-3.1 released

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

Version 8.2.0-3.1 is a new release of the xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC, following SiFive release from May 2019.

Download​

The binary files are available from GitHub Releases.

Install​

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

xpm install @xpack-dev-tools/riscv-none-elf-gcc@8.2.0-3.1.1 -verbose

The full details of installing the xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC on various platforms can be found in the Install Guide.

Compliance​

Starting with v8.2.0-2, this distribution closely follows the official SiFive Freedom Tools distribution.

This release is based on the v2019.05.0 release, and includes the SiFive extensions (like CLIC interrupts and a larger multi-lib set).

The following commits (from sifive/freedom-tools) were used:

GDB was upstreamed and does not require SiFive specific patches, so the current build uses git://sourceware.org/git/binutils-gdb.git, the 9b40759 commit from 28 Feb 2019.

Supported libraries​

The supported libraries are:

$ riscv-none-embed-gcc -print-multi-lib
.;
rv32e/ilp32e;@march=rv32e@mabi=ilp32e
rv32em/ilp32e;@march=rv32em@mabi=ilp32e
rv32eac/ilp32e;@march=rv32eac@mabi=ilp32e
rv32emac/ilp32e;@march=rv32emac@mabi=ilp32e
rv32i/ilp32;@march=rv32i@mabi=ilp32
rv32im/ilp32;@march=rv32im@mabi=ilp32
rv32imf/ilp32f;@march=rv32imf@mabi=ilp32f
rv32imaf/ilp32f;@march=rv32imaf@mabi=ilp32f
rv32iac/ilp32;@march=rv32iac@mabi=ilp32
rv32imac/ilp32;@march=rv32imac@mabi=ilp32
rv32imafc/ilp32f;@march=rv32imafc@mabi=ilp32f
rv32imafdc/ilp32d;@march=rv32imafdc@mabi=ilp32d
rv64i/lp64;@march=rv64i@mabi=lp64
rv64im/lp64;@march=rv64im@mabi=lp64
rv64imf/lp64f;@march=rv64imf@mabi=lp64f
rv64iac/lp64;@march=rv64iac@mabi=lp64
rv64imac/lp64;@march=rv64imac@mabi=lp64
rv64imafc/lp64f;@march=rv64imafc@mabi=lp64f
rv64imafdc/lp64d;@march=rv64imafdc@mabi=lp64d

Improvements​

Compared to the original SiFive version, the same architecture and API options are supported, and there are minimal functional changes

  • libgloss was removed from the list of libraries always linked to the application, since it issues ECALL instructions that fail in bare metal environments
  • march=rv32imaf/mabi=ilp32f was added to the list of multi-libs
  • the standard documentation, in PDF and HTML, is included

newlib-nano​

Support for newlib-nano is available using the --specs=nano.specs option. For better results, this option must be added to both compile and link time.

nosys.specs​

If no syscalls are needed, --specs=nosys.specs can be used at link time to provide empty implementations for the POSIX system calls.

Compile options​

The libraries are compiled with -O2 -mcmodel=medany. The nano version is compiled with -Os -mcmodel=medany.

caution

It is mandatory for the applications to be compiled with -mcmodel=medany, otherwise the link will fail.

Known problems​

  • support for Python scripting is experimental and riscv-none-embed-gdb-py does not start properly on some systems.

Documentation​

The original PDF documentation is available in the share/doc folder.

Supported platforms​

Binaries for Windows, macOS and GNU/Linux are provided.

The binaries 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.

  • x86/x64 GNU/Linux: all binaries were built with GCC 7.4, running in a CentOS 6 Docker container
  • x86/x64 Windows: all binaries were built with mingw-w64 GCC 7.4, running in a CentOS 6 Docker container
  • x64 macOS: most binaries were built with GCC 7.4, running in a separate folder on macOS 10.10.5; GDB cannot be compiled with GCC, so Apple clang was used.

Tests​

The binaries were testes on Windows 10 Pro 32/64-bit, Ubuntu 18 LTS 64-bit, Xubuntu 18 LTS 32-bit and macOS 10.13.

The tests consist in building and debugging some simple Eclipse projects available in the build project.

Since the source code used for GCC is identical to the one used by SiFive, the long and complex tests performed by SiFive to validate their release were not executed again.

Checksums​

The SHA-256 hashes for the files are:

48ece50b7272a8e49e56e37f54f9962f93dce4ca44f1bb4c8113fab0230fbdf1
xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.2.0-3.1-darwin-x64.tgz

2e856ee33ef544a2405183366cdf299da2cca697e8cc57627dfaad8ab4460a99
xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.2.0-3.1-linux-x32.tgz

3d40fab50ebad8424ff85748f25d2eaee50f86a5d5222abd7a45a2e490f1e4f5
xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.2.0-3.1-linux-x64.tgz

78bcd52f7b404133de3b2f9568e7101c1de747f98db3a7b0d6251b75a1754867
xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.2.0-3.1-win32-x32.zip

98b60720607f1400081806d60d70796b30399f8b426e2c790a4abb0bffb9e5ec
xpack-riscv-none-embed-gcc-8.2.0-3.1-win32-x64.zip

Download analytics​

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