I would like to start digging into native development with the Netduino. I have been following the other previous threads and tutorials but they are getting dated now. What is the current state of the tools and procedures for native development?
- What toolchain does Secret Labs use? Can I use GCC and create something reasonable that works?
- There were tutorials on building the firmware in the wiki/forums, are these still relevant or is there something newer?
I did see in the past where it sounded like there was going to be a mechanism to load native compiled libraries to run native code easily but it does not look like this went anywhere.
It seems like if you use the Netduino for awhile and you end up wanting to use it for something that has fast (well, fast for netduino but slow for the rest of the embedded world) response requirements that you need to dive into the lower native layer to get it done.
Is the complete source available on github anywhere? I searched and could find the IP components but not the native netduino parts.
Could there be a native development forum created that addresses just native development? I have worked with native STM32 coding but it almost seems like the .NET micro / Netduino firmware development is the best kept secret. Are there any resources that make it easier?
From what I know currently the steps are:
- get a GCC compiler and install
- Have Visual Studio with C++ installed (not sure if VS is even needed though, also not sure if C++ is required but I thought I saw reference to things not compiling without it?)
- Download .NET micro porting kit and extract to directory
- Overwrite with Netduino native firmware
- Overwrite with another firmware package (cant recall which forum post exactly had this) in order for GCC to actually work
- For this example add your driver solution to the source
- Add stubs
- Code
- Modify project files to include these driver projects, both native and managed
- Compile
Out of all of that it is not entirely clear as to what/why you need to modify/overwrite certain parts. This whole .NET micro / Netduino thing would be massively more useful if you could actually get some clear information on how this all works.
I am used to the build process for native code on micro's directly. There is much less indirection and complication to get around, it seems trivial to get a hello world demo going on almost any other firmware development project other than anything related to .NET micro native development.....
