Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 20:17:29 GMT

Ok I found a fix!

So the problem with Debugging not starting in Linux (VS Code, nRF Connect) is because I hadn't properly setup the Cortex-Debug extension settings.json. The settings.json contains information on where the debugger gdb toolchains are located. In my case, I'm using the Zephyr SDK to do all the work so I had to point to arm-zephyr-eabi-gdb, which for me is located in "~/zephyr-sdk-0.13.2/arm-zephyr-eadi/bin". To configure Cortex-Debug to this I added the following lines to settings.json:

{
    "cortex-debug.JLinkGDBServerPath": "/opt/SEGGER/JLink/JLinkGDBServerCLExe",
    "cortex-debug.armToolchainPrefix": "arm-zephyr-eabi",
    "cortex-debug.armToolchainPath": "~/zephyr-sdk-0.13.2/arm-zephyr-eabi/bin"
}

Note: ~ needs to be replaced with your home directory.

After that I simply hit the debug button from within nRF Connect and the debug session started up correctly! I'm sure I could also add arm-zephyr-eabi and JLinkGDBServerCLIExe to the system path etc. to remove the need for including those two lines above.

Cheers,

Parker

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 17:03:37 GMT

Hi Jonathan,

I fixed my JLink probe issues and now I can flash code from VS Code nRF Connect. So I'm back to where I was before...still unable to start a debug session. I added export PATH=$PATH:$GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH/bin to my ~/.bashrc file. But still nothing is working.

I can start a debug session using west if I navigate to the ~/zephyrproject/zephyr folder and run "west debug". Now I want to configure VS Code so it will use the Zephyr SDK toolchain to start a debug session.

I'm guessing it's something really simple, like having to configure my launch.json file to point to the Zephyr SDK toolchain, or adding the toolchain to the path somehow. Any advice?

Cheers,

Parker

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 22:50:02 GMT

Sorry for the delay, my VM had a meltdown and then I got super busy with school. I'm getting the same environment setup in WSL2 running Ubuntu. I ended up adding

export ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT=zephyr

export PATH=$PATH:$GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH/bin

to my ~/.bashrc. Currently I can build my project no problem (nRF Connect now uses the Zephyr toolchain for building by default), but I'm having trouble with getting the JLink debugger to connect to WSL (a completely separate problem). Once I get that fixed I should be able to retest debugging.

Cheers,

Parker

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 15:03:16 GMT

Yes I will give that a try shortly!

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

JONATHAN LL — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 15:17:28 GMT

Ok thanks for the clarification,

could you try to add rm-none-eabi to path

/home/$USER/.bashrc

export PATH=$PATH:$GNUARMEMB_TOOLCHAIN_PATH/bin

And important to start VS code from terminal.

Regards,
Jonathan

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 13:49:46 GMT

Hi Jonathan,

Yes I used the toolchain manager and those tutorials to setup my nRF connect toolchain in Windows, but as far as I know the Linux installation is predominantly a manual process. Also the tutorials above only really apply for Mac OS and Windows.

On Linux, It seems like installing the Zephyr SDK (following these directions) is the easiest and most foolproof method of getting a working environment to build, flash and debug Zephyr applications. Then installing VS Code, the nRF Connect extension and setting the toolchain variables to use zephyr and not gnuarmemb allows nRF Connect to make use of the existing toolchains without having to install a second /ncs repository with redundant toolchains.

Thanks,

Parker

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

JONATHAN LL — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 12:31:47 GMT

Hi, Have you tried the nrf connect for desktop Toolchain manager?

We do have a video guide on how to set it up, it should be the same for all OS's.
nRF Connect for VS Code, 1: Installation - YouTube

nRF Connect for VS Code, 5: Debugging - YouTube

Here is a good introduction to nRF Connect SDK
Introducing nRF Connect for VS Code - nordicsemi.com

Regards,
Jonathan

RE: Building/Debugging with Zephyr SDK Toolchain in nRF Connect VS Code (Linux)

ParkerMcD — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 03:07:46 GMT

I found a workaround that allows me to build my project from within nRF Connect for VS Code. After adding an application to my workspace I added a build configuration and tried compiling my project. Once the build system failed and threw out the error previously posted above, I opened the CMakeCache.txt file in my projects generated build directory and changed the toolchain variant from gnuarmemb to zephyr.

//Zephyr toolchain variant
ZEPHYR_TOOLCHAIN_VARIANT:STRING=zephyr  // previously gnuarmemb

Now when I build no errors are thrown and I can flash my board with the resulting image. Now I'm working on getting the debug environment running as it is throwing the following error:

Assuming I just need to update some environment variables so nRF Connect can find the appropriate debugger executables and connect to my j-link pod.

Cheers,

Parker