Getting Started Guide Building user programs

Building user programs

There are two distinct ways to build a user program to run on a target system under STLinux:

• using a cross development toolchain executed on the host linux system and generating an executable program to run on the target Linux system, or

• using a native development toolchain executing on the target Linux system itself and generating an executable program which also runs on the target Linux system.

It is normally more convenient to cross compile programs in the host Linux environment, because the host system is designed as a software development platform for this very purpose and has the resources to execute the necessary tools efficiently. The target Linux system is designed as an embedded device and may not have the necessary resources to run the development tools efficiently, or even at all.

For this reason, this guide concentrates on the cross development route. However for some platforms (for example, the ST40 Linux 2.0 distribution), a complete set of native development tools are also provided and can be used if convenient and if the target platform is suitable. The descriptions in the following sections are generally applicable to both scenarios.