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I am looking to get started in developing for ARM microcontrollers on Linux.

Keep in mind I really enjoy the low level. Right now I have some experience with PIC16F series and 8 bit AVR. This is on the assembler level. I much prefer the PIC over AVR right now because it has rock solid debug and hardware dongle support for Linux everything with AVR feels like a hack.

Anyone have any suggestions on development boards and tools that will work well for Linux that will not cost huge amount of money as I am just a hobby guy.

If you need any more info I would be happy to give it just ask.

jippie
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William Lewis Jr
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    Google for TI Stellaris. – jippie May 05 '13 at 11:29
  • STM32 and the cheap ST-LINKv2 SWD adapters on the eval boards (also usable with external targets) work fairly well on Linux using free, open tools. It's not trivial, and the examples require some fixing to build with a standard GCC, but things like SWD and gdb integration are tricky enough as is, that tossing in some proprietary tool's desire to hide details, make licensing checks, and provide binaries only against oddly selected linux library versions is severely unwelcome. It can often be a case of the more you pay, the less flexibility you get. – Chris Stratton May 05 '13 at 14:37

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Look here man

http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontroller/tiva_arm_cortex/c_series/tm4c_arm_cortex-m4/overview.page?DCMP=tivac-series&HQS=tivac-series-b

Read up on that, it gives a good amount of background info

EDIT : Erm, I guess credit to Jippie too on the comment, I didn't see that before I posted but yeah. Sorry :S.

Sim
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  • Read through that seems very scalable from small to larger projects. How is the Linux tool support for those chips/dev boards? – William Lewis Jr May 05 '13 at 12:14
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    http://recursive-labs.com/blog/2012/10/28/stellaris-launchpad-gnu-linux-getting-started/ Been there, done that, probably doing it again in little while. Google 'stellaris launchpad linux' will give you quite few hits on Linux. It is more complicated than AVR on Linux, but it works. – jippie May 05 '13 at 12:20
  • I agree with Jippie on that one, also agree that it is more complex than AVR, although... I do hate AVR quite alot :S – Sim May 05 '13 at 12:21
  • From a Linux point of view avr sucks but workable. Another potential issue is pin pitch did not get a chance to scour as I am at work but 64 pins might give a hobbiest like me sever soldering issues when I need to make my own board. – William Lewis Jr May 05 '13 at 12:35
  • 64 pins should not be an issue, just only solder one, then two until you are sure the alignment is right. ARM on linux probably will be more tricky than AVR there - don't expect anything (even if it was expensive - almost especially if it was) to be turnkey, but you can do real work this way, and fully integrate it into your existing development process. – Chris Stratton May 05 '13 at 14:42
  • Will accept this as answer for now and look into more detail on the product tonight. – William Lewis Jr May 05 '13 at 14:45
  • Not expecting perfection but if it will integrate well with gcc gdb make and vim I am happy. The issue with avr is mainly hardware debugger dongle support. Very hackish and breaks a lot. – William Lewis Jr May 05 '13 at 15:24