Building Firmata test on ARM Linux

[TheCageybee]

I'm trying to build the firmata test app on ARM linux (Ubuntu not Android).

I downloaded the tar ball at http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/firmata_test/firmata_test.tar.gz and untared.

It fails on make though.

/bin/sh: 1: /home/miniand/wxwidgets/2.8.10.gtk2.teensy/bin/wx-config: not found
/bin/sh: 1: /home/miniand/wxwidgets/2.8.10.gtk2.teensy/bin/wx-config: not found
firmata_test.cpp:23:23: fatal error: wx/wxprec.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
serial.cpp:18:19: fatal error: wx/wx.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
make: *** [serial.o] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make: *** [firmata_test.o] Error 1
miniand@miniand:~/firmata_test$

It appears some of the files are missing from the tar ball.
Any idea where I can get them?
Or is it something else?

Cheers
The Cageybee

 

[MichaelMeissner]

You probably don't have the appropriate devel packages installed (<foo>-devel packages are needed to do development, and typically include header files and libraries). On my Fedora system, it looks like there were in wxPython-devel. On fedora, I would use yum to install packages. I believe on ubuntu, you use apt-get.

 

[PaulStoffregen]

You need to also compile wxWidgets 2.8.10. Later versions might work too, but if you grab 2.8.10 you'll be using the same version I used when I wrote firmata_test.

After you extract wxWidgets, use these commands:

export CXXFLAGS="-ffunction-sections -fdata-sections -Os"
export LDFLAGS="-Wl,--gc-sections"
./configure --prefix=/home/paul/wxwidgets/2.8.10.gtk2.teensy --enable-optimise --disable-shared --disable-unicode --enable-no_exceptions --without-libtiff -without-libjpeg --disable-compat26 --with-libpng --without-gnomeprint --without-gnomevfs --disable-printarch

Then just run "make" and go get a cup of coffee. Or if it's a slow ARM board like Raspberry Pi, come back several hours later.

When it's done compiling, you should have a bin/wx-config program within that wxWidgets directory. Put that full pathname into the firmata_test makefile.

Once the makefile can run xw-config, the error "/bin/sh: 1: /home/miniand/wxwidgets/2.8.10.gtk2.teensy/bin/wx-config: not found" will go away, and (hopefully) wx-config will provide everything needed to solve all the other errors.

 

[PaulStoffregen]

Normally, Michael's advise would be right on.

But in this case, the Ubuntu packages will almost certainly be compiled with --enable-unicode, which (probably) doesn't work with firmata_test. You *must* download a copy of the wxWidgets 2.8.10 source, use that configure command, and then compile firmata_test with the pathname of the xw-config inside a properly built copy of the library.

 

[TheCageybee]

Thanks for the quick response.

I'd installed wxwidgets from synaptic and just needed to change the path.

you should have a bin/wx-config program within that wxWidgets directory. Put that full pathname into the firmata_test makefile.

It's getting further now but unfortunately getting lots of errors now and fails I suspect because as Paul points out, wxwidgets is built with unicode.

serial.cpp:807:13: error: conversion from ‘char [512]’ to ‘const wxString’ is ambiguous
serial.cpp:753:7: note: candidates are:
/usr/include/wx-2.8/wx/string.h:692:3: note: wxString::wxString(wxChar, size_t) <near match>
/usr/include/wx-2.8/wx/string.h:692:3: note: no known conversion for argument 1 from ‘char [512]’ to ‘wxChar {aka wchar_t}’
/usr/include/wx-2.8/wx/string.h:682:3: note: wxString::wxString(int) <near match>
/usr/include/wx-2.8/wx/string.h:682:3: note: no known conversion for argument 1 from ‘char [512]’ to ‘int’
/usr/include/wx-2.8/wx/arrstr.h:186:10: error: initializing argument 1 of ‘size_t wxArrayString::Add(const wxString&, size_t)’
make: *** [firmata_test.o] Error 1
make: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
make: *** [serial.o] Error 1

Still, thanks for your help guys.

The Cageybee

 

[PaulStoffregen]

You really must compile wxWidgets from source, using those configure options I posted in reply #3. It's really not that hard, just get the source code, run those commands, and in 10 min to a couple hours (depending on the CPU speed and memory), it'll be done compiling.