Build Apache NuttX RTOS on Alpine Linux

alpine-linux-nuttx.md

Build Apache NuttX RTOS on Alpine Linux

To build NuttX for Arm64 or RISC-V we need to install these Build Prerequisites...

• "Install Prerequisites"
• Arm64 or RISC-V Toolchain

## Install prerequisites
sudo apk add \
  bison flex gettext texinfo \
  gperf automake libtool gperf \
  binutils-dev picocom u-boot-tools util-linux \
  patch autoconf gcc-aarch64-none-elf newlib-aarch64-none-elf

## Install genromfs
git clone https://github.com/chexum/genromfs
pushd genromfs
make
sudo make install
popd

But on Alpine Linux, compiling kconfig-frontends may fail with an aclocal-1.15 error.

Here's the fix...

pushd /tmp
git clone https://bitbucket.org/nuttx/tools.git
cd tools
cd kconfig-frontends
./configure --enable-mconf --disable-nconf --disable-gconf --disable-qconf
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/aclocal /usr/local/bin/aclocal-1.15
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/automake /usr/local/bin/automake-1.15
make
sudo make install
popd

Installing the RISC-V Toolchain on Alpine Linux requires a few more steps...

## Download xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC Toolchain for 64-bit RISC-V
wget https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/riscv-none-elf-gcc-xpack/releases/download/v13.2.0-2/xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-13.2.0-2-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar xf xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-13.2.0-2-linux-x64.tar.gz

## Add to PATH
export PATH=$PWD/xpack-riscv-none-elf-gcc-13.2.0-2/bin:$PATH

## Add glibc-to-musl compatibility, because xPack GCC was compiled for glibc
## From https://github.com/sgerrand/alpine-pkg-glibc
sudo wget -q -O /etc/apk/keys/sgerrand.rsa.pub https://alpine-pkgs.sgerrand.com/sgerrand.rsa.pub
wget https://github.com/sgerrand/alpine-pkg-glibc/releases/download/2.35-r1/glibc-2.35-r1.apk
sudo apk add glibc-2.35-r1.apk

## Test gcc:
## gcc version 13.2.0 (xPack GNU RISC-V Embedded GCC x86_64) 
riscv-none-elf-gcc -v

(Why we use xPack Toolchain)

This works great with Alpine Linux Containers on Rancher Desktop and VSCode Remote Containers...

• NuttX on Rancher Desktop and VSCode Remote Containers

But Alpine Linux uses musl instead of glibc. Will we have problems later?

Some tools will fail with musl! (Like Nim Compiler)

We can use a Debian Bookworm Container instead (like for running Nim)...

• Build NuttX with Debian Container in VSCode