CCS license expired... now what?

[jon1426459908 0]

I'm pretty new to this forum and to Stellaris in general, but have been developing on the Launchpad over the past few months using the CCS IDE.  But now that the 'trial' license for it has expired (and since I am a hobbyist and have no intentions of paying for a commercial license), it seems I am left with a few options.  From what I can tell there is not an option for a size-limited license, and the GCC/Linux-based approaches seem to have a fair bit of setup, but seem to work well for people?  I guess I am just curious about what the majority of people in a similar position are using and if there is any reason to persue one option over another (not excluding STM32, I suppose!)

 

Thanks,

Jon

[Bingo600 0]

Wasn't the CCS licence later changed to be "forever" if a Stellais-Launchpad was the developmentplatform  and (prob.) connected to the PC ?

 

Have a look at getting a new licence/CCS

 

/Bingo

[Bingo600 0]

Look here

 

 

http://forum.stellarisiti.com/topic/186-will-ccs-be-free-for-the-stellaris-launchpad/

[jon1426459908 0]

Ah, you are correct.  I had installed ccs v5.2 only a couple days before v5.3 came out, and don't remember seeing that 'free' license which is now offered in the latest version.  Up and running again, thanks!

 

Jon

[Randy1426459910 0]

The free license for CCS also works if you have an XDS100 JTAG connected.  These are only around $70 and allow you to compile and debug your own custom hardware instead of being tied to a dev kit.

 

Randy

[aBUGSworstnightmare 1]

The free license for CCS also works if you have an XDS100 JTAG connected.  These are only around $70 and allow you to compile and debug your own custom hardware instead of being tied to a dev kit.

 

Randy

 

Hi, 

 

buy a Stellaris Launchpad, have a look at the wiki 'DEBUG OUT' http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Stellaris_LM4F120_LaunchPad_Debug_How_To and save some bucks!

 

aBUGSworstnightmare

[jon1426459908 0]

I assume the free license also works for all LM4F MCUs?  I worry more about being tied to a particular MCU than dev board

 

As an aside, this thread talks about what I was originally interested in, which compiler people have had the most luck using in continued development--

 

http://forum.stellarisiti.com/topic/491-which-compiler-i-should-to-use/

 

Eventually it would be nice to migrate to a bare Eclipse+GCC setup.  I have thus been unsuccessful in even getting the CCS plugin to work with an existing Eclipse install, let alone trying to get a completely different compiler up and running.  But it would be slick to do all my development in one IDE, someday!

 

Jon

[zborgerd 62]

As far as Linux goes (as mentioned in your first post), you could always try a VM like VirtualBox with the newest Ubuntu to see if it works for you.  But that doesn't exactly simplify utilizing an IDE like Eclipse for you any more than it would on WIndows.  I just dumped the IDE in my latest Ubuntu installation.  An IDE has its benefits, but certainly is no requirement.  When it comes to GCC with a standard text or code editor, you will need to learn to create makeflies, but there are many examples on these sites.  I was previously using CCS v5.x for Linux but gradually found things that I just didn't like about it.  The Linux support for MSP430 is pretty poor.  C2k support is incomplete.  Other TI architectures are a bit better.

 

ARM is well-supported on all platforms, so it's nice that we have a large amount of options available if we don't want to use CCS for Stellaris.  Getting away from CCS gets me on a unified set of tools for every ARM architecture (I have STM32 boards as well) and I can use common tools forr MSP430, Renesas RX / RL78, AVR, and every other microcontroller that I work with.  Things can get sketchy when it comes to loading and debugging a few of these though (mainly Renesas).  Certain JTAG tools might be a good option.  I've dabbled with JLink on some of these chips.

 

The GCC / Linux / ARM tools and tutorials on the web are pretty good.  This ARM-endorsed prebuilt toolchain is precompiled for Windows, Mac, or Linux.  I used to build a GCC toolchain but decided to give this a try instead and have had no problems.  https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded

[Bingo600 0]

I'm using Code::Blocks IDE 12.xx on Linux Mint 14.1 Mate - (fast and native as in not java)

To avoid all the "plugin" issues , i'm using makefiles ... And not "Clicky..Clicky".

This gives me the advantage of being able to compile for any arm-gcc supported mcu  TI,NXP,ST,Atmel.

 

So primarily i use CB for editor , and the debugger (uses arm-gdb)

 

Ohh and i second , using the "launchpad" arm compiler.

 

I previously used CodeSourcery lite , but after Mentor took over i have abandoned due to all the register stuff.

 

And i have a feeling that , while ARM was backing up CodeSourcey ($$) before the Mentor takeover.

ARM have moved their support to the "launchpad" arm-gcc , and therefore the launchpad gcc is the one with the most recent features.

 

/Bingo

 

 

Edit: I use this repos/ppa  (the stock CB is too old) -  

 

/etc/apt/sources.list

 

#
# http://lgp203.free.fr/ubuntu/
#
deb http://lgp203.free.fr/ubuntu quantal universe
deb-src http://lgp203.free.fr/ubuntu quantal universe