VisualGDB support

[jallard]

We are evaluating VisualGDB, but are less than thrilled. It seems that the documentation and tutorials are not up to date and there’s many inconsistencies and work-arounds when trying to use it.

For example, creating a Qt project on Beaglebone Black does not work. From what we can tell, you actually have to create a Raspberry Pi project (or something like this). Some of the documentation and dialogs refer to Angstrom distributions for Beaglebone and others refer to Debian.

My understanding is that VisualGDB is supposed to provide an automated way to setup and configure projects so that we don’t need to spend our time googling for various packages and solutions. Yet, it seems that even the basic, out of the box, examples do not work, so we are googling….

Are others running into the same problems?

[support]

Hi,

Sorry for the confusion. We do have separate tutorials for Angstrom-based and Debian-based images for Beaglebone. Please let us know which one you are using so that we could point you to the correct one.

It could have also happened that the Beaglebone image you are using contains a breaking change that prevents VisualGDB from doing the automatic setup. If you could point us to the image and let us know the problem you are experiencing, we will gladly update the tutorial and release a hotfix.

[jallard]

Either Angstrom or Debian would be fine. We are trying to develop with Qt but it is unclear what distro we are supposed to use. The tutorials do not seem to match the choices we have in VisualGDB. VisualGDB only has Debian as a choice, but other parts of the tutorial seem to rely on Angstrom.

Thanks,
Jim

[support]

Hi,

Sorry again for the confusion. The Angstrom Linux used to be the primary distro for Beaglebone and our Beaglebone Qt tutorials explain how to get it to work. We also provide a toolchain for that, but we do not recommend using Angstrom for new projects, as it is being replaced by Debian.

If you are not required to use the Angstrom image, we would recommend using the newest Debian image from http://beagleboard.org/latest-images.

It looks like the Qt package in the Beaglebone-debian distro is broken, so you would need to cross-compile it. We currently have a detailed tutorial on cross-compiling Qt 5 for Raspberry Pi and cross-compiling it for Beaglebone should be very simlar. We will re-check the exact steps with the latest image and publish an updated tutorial within the next few days.

 

[jallard]

Thanks for the info. My point, though, is that even the Angstrom tutorials do not seem to work, apparently because the new VisualGDB tools only support Debian as far a we can tell. In other words, it appears that there is no way to use the latest VisualGDB with a Beaglebone Angstrom or Debian image.

We will try the Raspberry Pi cross-compile and see if we can make sense of this.

 

[support]

Hi,

You can get the Angstrom toolchain from here. Once you install it, VisualGDB will show it in the list. We hide it by default because Angstrom is far less stable than Debian and we do not recommend new customers to use it. Let us know if you encounter problems with the cross-compilation. In the meanwhile, we will check it on our side and make a separate tutorial.

[jallard]

We are getting this error when attempting to build configure Qt:

$ ../qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/configure -platform win32-g++ -xplatfor
m linux-arm-gnueabi-g++ -release -opengl es2 -device linux-rasp-pi2-g++ -sysroo
t C:/SysGCC/Raspberry/arm-linux-gnueabihf/sysroot -prefix /usr/local/qt5 -devic
e-option CROSS_COMPILE=C:/SysGCC/Raspberry/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf- -qt-xcb

Preparing build tree…
Running configuration tests…
The OpenGL ES 2.0 functionality test failed!
Use of pkg-config is not enabled, maybe you want to pass -force-pkg-config?
You might need to modify the include and library search paths by editing
QMAKE_INCDIR_OPENGL_ES2, QMAKE_LIBDIR_OPENGL_ES2 and QMAKE_LIBS_OPENGL_ES2 in
c:/qt/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/qtbase/mkspecs/devices/linux-rasp-pi2-
g++.

[support]

Hi,

OK, we have retested the qt cross-compilation with Beaglebone. You need to edit the device configuration file to remove the -mfloat-abi argument and also change the QT_QPA_DEFAULT_PLATFORM.

Please have a look at this tutorial preview for more details. We will run a clean build to recheck everything and then publish the final tutorial. We will also release an updated toolchain with the pre-built Qt binaries, so you can simply wait for that if you don’t want to build it yourself.

[jallard]

Followed tutorial preview. Now getting this:

$ ../qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/configure -platform win32-g++ -xplatfor
m linux-arm-gnueabi-g++ -release -device linux-beagleboard-g++ -sysroot C:/SysG
CC/Beaglebone/arm-linux-gnueabihf/sysroot -prefix /usr/local/qt5 -device-option
CROSS_COMPILE=c:/SysGCC/Beaglebone/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf- -qt-xcb
+ cd qtbase
+ /c/qt/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.5.0/qtbase/configure -top-level -platform
win32-g++ -xplatform linux-arm-gnueabi-g++ -release -device linux-beagleboard-g
++ -sysroot C:/SysGCC/Beaglebone/arm-linux-gnueabihf/sysroot -prefix /usr/local/
qt5 -device-option CROSS_COMPILE=c:/SysGCC/Beaglebone/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf- –
qt-xcb

Preparing build tree…
Running configuration tests…
The test for linking against libxcb failed!
Use of pkg-config is not enabled, maybe you want to pass -force-pkg-config?
You might need to install dependency packages for libxcb.
See src/plugins/platforms/xcb/README.

Seems like libxcb is in the proper location: C:\SysGCC\Beaglebone\arm-linux-gnueabihf\sysroot\lib\arm-linux-gnueabihf

Not sure why we’re getting the error.

Also, there’s no “tools” folder or “updatesysroot.bat” in the beaglebone toolchain install.

 

[support]

Hi,

Perhaps some libraries are missing in the sysroot. Please try our latest Beaglebone toolchain. It also contains the pre-built Qt binaries, so you can simply deploy them to your Beaglebone and start using Qt.

We have also published the final version of the tutorial: http://visualgdb.com/tutorials/beaglebone/qt5/cross-compile/

You should be able to create an app for it by following the Raspberry tutorial without cross-compiling the entire Qt framework (note that Qmake in the toolchain has the c:\SysGCC\Beaglebone directory hardcoded; our next tutorial will show how to adjust it, but for now please place the Beaglebone toolchain to c:\SysGCC\Beaglebone).

[jallard]

The pre-built Qt binaries work. Thank you.

We love the concept of VisualGDB, and although there are some kinks to work out and documentation that needs updating (at least with Beaglebone support), the technical support, alone, is worth the cost.

[support]

Hi,

No problem. We have updated our Beaglebone tutorials to clearly state the Angstrom is deprecated and also published a new tutorial showing how to create an app for Beaglebone.

If you encounter further problems or find outdated information in our documentation, feel free to let us know so that we could update the documentation or provide fixes/workarounds.

[TybiBeaton]

Can you please share your setup of VisualGDB with the beaglebone?

I am working with the Beaglebone but don’t have any idea about the VisualGDB about it?

Please tell me the whole hardware setup and also share your firmware.

[support]

Hi,

We simply connected Beaglebone to our internal network with a DHCP server via an Ethernet cable. Then we used the stock firmware listed here and were able to create new projects. If this does not work for you, please let us know which problems you are encountering so that we could help you resolve them.

[Author]

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