FW: Linux and C compilers for Microchip PIC

I guess this may be of some help to some people in the list
even though I myself have limited experience with PIC 
development on Linux.

I did quite some small editing to my original email to make
it clearer.

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: Chen Xiao Fan 
Sent: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 12:25 PM

I guess the best C compiler for PIC16F is Hi-Tech PICC. They
have versions for Windows, Unix and Linux. But it is not a free
product. The demo version is only for Windows. The Lite version
is for both Windows and Linux but only supports a few PICs.
CCS has a version for Linux as well but I am not so sure about 
the quality and the price.

SDCC is catching up, but it is much more mature for the PIC18F
than the PIC16F. I think it is a good option to use SDCC and 
PIC18F for hobbyists on Linux if Wine is too troublesome. It is 
said that PIC18F is much better to use than PIC16F even though 
I have very limited experience with PIC18F.

If Wine is an option, then I think MPLAB C18 with PIC18F is a
good option as well. They have the Student version for free. 
Micro C is another option under Wine but I do not know how
good it is. It is as well not free. I do not use CrossOver 
since I think plain Wine is good enough for most of the things 
CrossOver can do. I tried CrossOver Office in my friends' 
PC and MPLAB 7.1 installation does not work. 

My specific setup for Wine + Microchip tools:
Ubuntu Linux 5.04 + Wine + Wine Utils from Ubuntu
(Follow the step of Wine Utils to install IE6 and then MPLAB)
MPLAB 7.10 / 7.20.
MPLAB C18 Version 2.40 (Student version).
MPLAB C30 demo version.

MPLAB IDE is not really working but MPASM and MPASM30 work under
Wine. But for Linux power user like you, Make will do the job
better than MPLAB IDE. However all the hardware tools will 
not work like MPLAB ICD2 because of the broken serial emulation
of Wine. The USB ICD2 will of course not work as well. But you
are using Wisp 628, which does work with Linux.

MPLAB C18 and C30 will work under Wine without any problem even
though MPLAB may not be properly installed under other Linux
version. The installation of MPLAB C18 is not okay. But you can
copy the windows installation to Linux. The installation
of MPLAB C30 is without any problem.

Still I do not quite like to use Wine and I have since stopped
playing with Wine myself. Wine is an option but not a good
option since the alternatives like gpasm, gpsim and SDCC
are getting better and better.

There is actually a port of MPLAB C30 on the Linux side (without 
the libraries). But the problem is to find a Linux compatible 
programmer for dsPICs. Wisp628 does not support dsPICs right now.
There is a dsPIC program for JDM on Linux but I personally
do not quite like JDM/Tait type of PIC programmers.

All in all, SDCC+PIC18F is a better option to explore under
Linux and SDCC is open source. I just hope that SDCC will
soon support 18F4550 so I can use it with PICDEM FS USB.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Xiaofan

-----Original Message-----
From: xxx xxx
Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 8:57 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Linux and C compilers for Microchip PIC

Hi there,

I see on the PICLIST that you've done a lot of research with PIC 
development under Linux.

I've been playing with PICs for around a year, all in ASM and JAL using a 
WISP628, but would really like to give C a shot.  I looked at sdcc a while 
ago and for the 16F series it was badly broken.  There was also a demo of 
a compiler (I forget the name) that I tried that was limited to only a few 
chips.

Any advice, especially with using WINE (I have Crossover Office and love 
it)?

Thanks,
xxx xxx