Installing AVR Toolchain

Introduction

There are a few pieces of software you'll definitely want for AVR programming:

• A compiler and/or assembler (avr-gcc) to convert human-readable code to binary
• Manipulation of binaries (binutils-avr). You'll need to convert from the ELF file to something your chip will like.
• Something to talk to your AVR programmer (AVRDUDE), that is the piece of hardware you plug into both your computer and the chip you want to program.
• Not required, but something to make your life easier: (GNU make)

Note that both avr-gcc and binutils-avr come from the avr-libc project. avr-libc itself isn't software per-se; it's a library that implements standard C functions for AVRs.

Installation

Windows

WinAVR has everything you need.

OS X

CrossPack should take care of you.

Linux

Ubuntu

Install the following packages:

• avrdude
• avrdude-doc
• binutils-avr
• avr-libc
• gcc-avr

Using the Atmel Dragon with avrdude on Ubuntu: Apparently there are two bugs that get in the way when trying to use avrdude with the dragon.

• avrdude 5.8 (via apt-get) segfaults after writing 1 byte: http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?27507 - there is a patch for 5.8 posted there
• avrdude 5.9 (via the official site) source apparently has some other bug that prevents the build from completing

The solution (aside from applying patches to the above versions) is to use the patched 5.10 SVN code. The instructions are from this link: http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=printview&t=87972&start=20

• svn co svn://svn.savannah.nongnu.org/avrdude/trunk .
• cd avrdude
• ./bootstrap
• ./configure
• ./make
• sudo ./make install

That seems to have worked for me! --obscurite

You can get them in one shot using:

sudo aptitude install avrdude avrdude-doc binutils-avr avr-libc gcc-avr