Cross Compile with FPC for ARM

Cross Compile with FPC for ARM (e.g. Zaurus)

• First, setup a cross compilation environment; you can get more information about this here [1], here [2] and here [3].
• Install the lastest native fpc from sourceforge
• get an arm fpc snapshot from the downloads page of FPC Qt Binding for Zaurus
• Download it to somedir. The name of the tar file may be different ofcourse

cd somedir
tar zxvf arm-linux-fpc.i386-linux-20050217.tar.gz

• you will find a 'lib/fpc/1.9.7/units/arm-linux/...' dir. The version may be '1.9.8' or higher.
• create FPC library directory structure for fpc in a lib dir on your system
• most systems use '/usr/local/lib', some use '/usr'

mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/fpc/1.9.7/units
cp -fr lib/fpc/1.9.7/units/arm-linux /usr/local/lib/fpc/1.9.7/units/

• copy the fpc cross compiler to its default place

cp lib/fpc/1.9.7/ppcarm /usr/local/lib/fpc/1.9.7

• set a soft link to it in a bin dir in your path
• most distributions use '/usr/local/bin', some '/usr/bin'

ln -sf /usr/local/lib/fpc/1.9.7/ppcarm /usr/local/bin/ppcarm

• verify you can call ppcarm, it should return something like '1.9.7' and not 'command not found'

ppcarm -iV

• download FPC 1.9.x ARM binutils to somedir

cd somedir
tar zxvf binutils.tar.gz

• copy the 2 programs in the tar to a bin dir in your path

cp arm-linux-* /usr/local/bin

• create a 'Hello World' program and compile it

echo "program hello; begin writeln('Hello World'); end." > hello.pas
ppcarm -XParm-linux- hello.pas

• output should be something like this:

 # ppcarm -XParm-linux- hello.pas
 Free Pascal Compiler version 1.9.7 [2005/02/17] for arm
 Copyright (c) 1993-2005 by Florian Klaempfl
 Target OS: Linux for ARM
 Compiling hello.pas
 Assembling hello
 Linking hello
 1 Lines compiled, 0.2 sec

• Copy it to the home directory of the user 'zaurus' on your zaurus device.
• With a ssh setup this could be as simple as:

scp hello zaurus:/home/zaurus

• Install terminal program on your Zaurus. For a Zaurus SL6000: see manual on CD.
• Run the terminal program. On a SL6000 the console will default to user 'zaurus' in its home dir /home/zaurus
• Run the program

./hello

• Output should be something like:

Hello World