Compiling a Linux program for ARM architecture - running on a host OS

Question

I have a ARM Coretex-A8 development board from Freescale (i.MX53) running Linux Ubuntu. It boots up just fine and I can access the system with mouse/keyboard/terminal.

Answer 1

For ARM-Linux application development the preferable choice is a Linux Host(x86) machine with a ARM toolchain installed in it. In Ubuntu Desktop machine you can use the following command to install ARM toolchain:

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

After toolchain installation you can use the following command for cross compilation:

gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi-gcc -o hello hello.c

Using this toolchain you can cross-compile your C program using Standard C library without the need of startup code. Applications can be cross-compiled at your Host Linux(x86) platform and run on Target Linux(ARM) platform.

Windows version of ARM-Linux Toolchain is also available. You can get it from here.

Linaro Developers Wiki - an open organization focused on improving Linux on ARM, will be a good reference for your work.