u-boot/doc/build/gcc.rst
Simon Glass 93b1965322 Makefile: Only build dtc if needed
At present U-Boot always builds dtc if CONFIG_OF_CONTROL is defined, even
when DTC is provided. The built dtc is not actually used, so this is a
waste of time.

Update the Makefile logic to build dtc only if one is not provided to the
build with the DTC variable. Add documentation to explain this.

This saves about 3.5 seconds of elapsed time on a clean build of
sandbox_spl for me.

Signed-off-by: Simon Glass <sjg@chromium.org>
2021-10-19 11:23:07 -04:00

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Building with GCC
=================
Dependencies
------------
For building U-Boot you need a GCC compiler for your host platform. If you
are not building on the target platform you further need a GCC cross compiler.
Debian based
~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Debian based systems the cross compiler packages are named
gcc-<architecture>-linux-gnu.
You could install GCC and the GCC cross compiler for the ARMv8 architecture with
.. code-block:: bash
sudo apt-get install gcc gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu
Depending on the build targets further packages maybe needed
.. code-block:: bash
sudo apt-get install bc bison build-essential coccinelle \
device-tree-compiler dfu-util efitools flex gdisk graphviz imagemagick \
liblz4-tool libguestfs-tools libncurses-dev libpython3-dev libsdl2-dev \
libssl-dev lz4 lzma lzma-alone openssl pkg-config python3 \
python3-coverage python3-pycryptodome python3-pyelftools python3-pytest \
python3-sphinxcontrib.apidoc python3-sphinx-rtd-theme python3-virtualenv \
swig
SUSE based
~~~~~~~~~~
On suse based systems the cross compiler packages are named
cross-<architecture>-gcc<version>.
You could install GCC and the GCC 10 cross compiler for the ARMv8 architecture
with
.. code-block:: bash
sudo zypper install gcc cross-aarch64-gcc10
Depending on the build targets further packages maybe needed.
.. code-block:: bash
zypper install bc bison flex gcc libopenssl-devel libSDL2-devel make \
ncurses-devel python3-devel python3-pytest swig
Prerequisites
-------------
For some boards you have to build prerequisite files before you can build
U-Boot, e.g. for the some boards you will need to build the ARM Trusted Firmware
beforehand. Please, refer to the board specific documentation
:doc:`../board/index`.
Configuration
-------------
Directory configs/ contains the template configuration files for the maintained
boards following the naming scheme::
<board name>_defconfig
These files have been stripped of default settings. So you cannot use them
directly. Instead their name serves as a make target to generate the actual
configuration file .config. For instance the configuration template for the
Odroid C2 board is called odroid-c2_defconfig. The corresponding .config file
is generated by
.. code-block:: bash
make odroid-c2_defconfig
You can adjust the configuration using
.. code-block:: bash
make menuconfig
Building
--------
When cross compiling you will have to specify the prefix of the cross-compiler.
You can either specify the value of the CROSS_COMPILE variable on the make
command line or export it beforehand.
.. code-block:: bash
CROSS_COMPILE=<compiler-prefix> make
Assuming cross compiling on Debian for ARMv8 this would be
.. code-block:: bash
CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- make
Build parameters
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A list of available parameters for the make command can be obtained via
.. code-block:: bash
make help
You can speed up compilation by parallelization using the -j parameter, e.g.
.. code-block:: bash
CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu- make -j$(nproc)
Further important build parameters are
* O=<dir> - generate all output files in directory <dir>, including .config
* V=1 - verbose build
Devicetree compiler
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Boards that use `CONFIG_OF_CONTROL` (i.e. almost all of them) need the
devicetree compiler (dtc). Those with `CONFIG_PYLIBFDT` need pylibfdt, a Python
library for accessing devicetree data. Suitable versions of these are included
in the U-Boot tree in `scripts/dtc` and built automatically as needed.
To use the system versions of these, use the DTC parameter, for example
.. code-block:: bash
DTC=/usr/bin/dtc make
In this case, dtc and pylibfdt are not built. The build checks that the version
of dtc is new enough. It also makes sure that pylibfdt is present, if needed
(see `scripts_dtc` in the Makefile).
Note that the :doc:`tools` are always built with the included version of libfdt
so it is not possible to build U-Boot tools with a system libfdt, at present.
Other build targets
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A list of all make targets can be obtained via
.. code-block:: bash
make help
Important ones are
* clean - remove most generated files but keep the configuration
* mrproper - remove all generated files + config + various backup files
Installation
------------
The process for installing U-Boot on the target device is device specific.
Please, refer to the board specific documentation :doc:`../board/index`.