Compiling OpenOCD v06 Linux

This guide will compile OpenOCD 0.6.0 for Ubuntu 10.04 with the LibFTDI driver library, for use with the TinCanTools Flyswatter, Flyswatter2, and Flyswatter3. Version 0.6.0 is the version of OpenOCD currently in development. For instructions on compiling with the most recent release code, see Compiling OpenOCD Linux.

Installing Packages

You will need to install several packages to compile and run OpenOCD. Open a terminal window (Applications menu > Accessories > Terminal) and type:

sudo apt-get install libtool autoconf texinfo libusb-dev

If you prefer to compile libusb yourself, you can find the source at http://sourceforge.net/projects/libusb/files/libusb-1.0/.

Downloading and Compiling libFTDI

libFTDI is an open source library that enables you to talk to FTDI chips like: FT232BM, FT245BM, FT245R, FT2232C, FT2232D and FT2232H. You will need libFTDI to compile OpenOCD. Download libftdi.so.1.19.0.tar.gz from: http://www.intra2net.com/en/developer/libftdi/download.php and extract it to your home directory (/home/USERNAME, replacing USERNAME with your username).

Navigate to home/USERNAME/libftdi.so.1.19.0/src, and copy ftdi.h to your /usr/include directory. Then create a symbolic link to ftdi.h in /usr/local/include. In the terminal window:

cd ~/libftdi.so.1.19.0/src
sudo cp ftdi.h /usr/include
cd /usr/local/include
sudo ln -s /usr/include/ftdi.h ftdi.h

Return to your libftdi.so.1.19.0 directory and compile.

cd ~/libftdi.so.1.19.0
./configure
make
sudo make install

This will install the necessary library files to /usr/local/lib. Navigate to /usr/lib and create symbolic links to the new files.

cd /usr/lib
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libftdi.a libftdi.a
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libftdi.la libftdi.la
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libftdi.so.1.19.0 libftdi.so.1.19.0
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libftdi.so.1.19.0 libftdi.so
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libftdi.so.1.19.0 libftdi.so.1

Downloading OpenOCD

Git is version control software distributed with Ubuntu. You can use git to download the current development code from the OpenOCD git repository at sourceforge.net. In the terminal window, navigate to your home directory and make sure you don't already have a directory there named openocd/. (Downloading with git will create a directory called openocd/ containing the OpenOCD source. If you already have a directory called openocd/ either rename it or navigate to a different directory before you proceed.) Then download OpenOCD with the following command:

cd ~
git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/openocd/code

There should now be a folder in your home directory called openocd/.

Compiling OpenOCD

In the terminal window, navigate to the new folder containing the OpenOCD source and compile as follows.

cd ~/openocd
sudo ./bootstrap
sudo ./configure --enable-maintainer-mode --disable-werror --enable-ft2232_libftdi
sudo make
sudo make install

Navigate to /home/USERNAME/openocd/src to find the openocd binary. You will need superuser privileges (the sudo command) to run OpenOCD.

Preparing to Run OpenOCD

You can run openocd from /home/USERNAME/openocd/src, but you may encounter problems with configuration files. For a more in-depth discussion of these issues, see OpenOCD Config File Paths. This guide recommends that you create a new directory containing OpenOCD and its config files.

Create a new directory in /home/USERNAME called openocd-bin, and copy the openocd binary and the contents of /home/USERNAME/openocd/tcl to the new directory. You can do this from the terminal window with the collowing commands:

cd ~
mkdir openocd-bin
cd ~/openocd/tcl
cp -r * ~/openocd-bin
cd ~/openocd/src
cp openocd ~/openocd-bin

openocd-bin should now contain the following files and subdirectories:

board
chip
cpld
cpu
openocd
interface
target
test
bitsbytes.tcl
mem_helper.tcl
memory.tcl
mmr_helpers.tcl

You can now run OpenOCD from /home/USERNAME/openocd-bin. To get started running OpenOCD, see Running OpenOCD on Linux.