Trouble building with west - documentation gap between "getting started app" and "toolchain manager"

[jrowe]

Hi!

I am trying to work through the nRF Connect SDK tutorial series, and I got stuck at the "building with west step" in part1.

When I try to build my project using the command 

west build -b nRF9160-PCA10090

I get the error

west: error: argument <command>: invalid choice: 'build' (choose from 'init', 'update', 'list', 'manifest', 'diff', 'status', 'forall', 'help', 'config', 'topdir', 'selfupdate')

I am pretty sure that the problem has to do with my environment. I installed everything using the checklist in the "getting started app", but then thetoolchain manager was released and I installed again using it.

My python3 scripts folder is still on my system path (and it will stay that way because I use it for many other things), and west is still installed in global python packages, so it is clear that the command is using the wrong version of west.

I suspect that there is some kind of virtual environment that I need to activate in order to build using the version of west installed via the toolchain manager, but I can't find any documentation explaining how to do that. 

Is there any documentation that I am missing?

Are there any instructions on how to clean up / remove the build environment that I created by following the instructions in the "getting started app"?

thanks!

[jrowe]

I think I found the solution. In the toolchain folder nested inside the NCS folder there is an executable called git-bash.exe.

If you run this executable instead of a normal terminal then it will open a terminal that contains the arcane secrets of the NCS build environment. The command works when run from that terminal.

[Didrik Rokhaug]

Hi.

The solution you found is the correct one.

You can also start the Toolchain-Manager-git-bash (or cmd) from the Toolchain Manager by pressing the arrow next to the "Open IDE" button, and selecting "Open bash" (or "Open command prompt).

Best regards,

Didrik

[doozMen]

Is there a simular thing for macos. I so not seam to get the commandline build working on macos for now. 

[jasonrogers]

Having to run the bash to get the right tool is not a solution.  The actual solution is to set your path to the ncs directory in your environment variables as described here.  I dislike west so much....which is making it hard to like zaphyr which is making it hard to like the nrf53 series.

docs.zephyrproject.org/.../troubleshooting.html