Damiano Lodi
#Cpp #Embedded

How to Setup Ubuntu for C and C++ Development

Damiano Lodi avatar
Damiano Lodi
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In this article, I will explain how I am setting up my new Ubuntu desktop system for C/C++ development. In particular, I am going to install build-systems (Make, CMake and Ninja), compilers (GCC, Clang and Arm-GCC) and some supporting tools (e.g. Doxygen).

Prerequisites

I learned most parts of this setup process in the course Creating a Cross-Platform Build System for Embedded Projects with CMake from Embedded Artistry. The course goes more in-depth on the installation process of other tools, and it covers all the major OSes. If you need to learn more about CMake, go for it.

Build Systems Installation

CMake is the main tool I would like to use to create the build system. It can be installed either with apt or pip. The version installed using the first method is not updated frequently, so I decided to proceed using Python.

Terminal window
# Check if Python is installed
$ which python3
/usr/bin/python3


# Check Python version
$ python3 --version
Python 3.10.6


# Install pip (Python package manager)
$ sudo apt install python3-pip


# Install CMake
$ python3 -m pip install cmake

After running this last command, a warning is returned: CMake is installed in ~/.local/bin/, which is not on PATH. To run the command, I need to add the directory to the PATH variable.

If you are using Terminal setup (Zsh and Oh-My-Zsh), you need to do the following.

  • Open ~/.zshrc
  • Near the start of the file search the comment which is mentioning PATH and add the following lines
    • path+=('/home/<user>/.local/bin') where <user> must be replaced by your user
    • export PATH
  • Close and reopen Terminal

Instead, if you are using the default Bash shell, you need to add the following into ~/.bashrc

Terminal window
PATH="/home/<user>/.local/bin:$PATH"

Now I can check the CMake version.

Terminal window
$ cmake --version
cmake version 3.24.1

Finally, I can install Ninja.

Terminal window
$ sudo apt install ninja-build


# Check Ninja installation
$ ninja version
1.10.1

Make is missing because it will be installed later.

Toolchains Installation

Now I need to install the toolchains, i.e. the compilers used to translate C into machine code.

First, let’s install the build-essential package which contains (among other things):

  • Make
  • The GCC compiler
  • The libc library
Terminal window
$ sudo apt install build-essential


# Check Make installation
$ make --version
GNU Make 4.3
# ...more text...


# Check gcc installation
$ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 11.2.0-19ubuntu1) 11.2.0
# ...more text...

I will also install the Clang compiler.

Terminal window
sudo apt install clang lld llvm clang-tools

It’s time for embedded toolchains. I would like to install the ARM GNU Toolchain. Unfortunately, this process is a little bit more complicated because ARM does not provide the toolchain on package managers.

  • Go to the Arm GNU Toolchain website
  • Click on the Download ARM GNU Toolchain button
  • Download the tarball appropriate for the system (in this case x86_64 Linux .tar.xz)
  • Install the compression software XZ Utils using sudo apt install xz-utils
  • Unpackage the tarball with tar -vxf <filename>.tar.xz
  • Place the directory somewhere on your system
    • In my case, I decided to place it in ~/.local/toolchains

Now, I need to add the bin directory to PATH.

You can follow the same instructions of the previous paragraph. Based on your shell, you will have something like:

Terminal window
# ZSH - Add before the `export PATH` line
path+=('/home/damiano/.local/toolchains/arm-gnu-toolchain-12.2.mpacbti-bet1-x86_64-arm-none-eabi/bin')


# BASH
PATH="/home/damiano/.local/toolchains/arm-gnu-toolchain-12.2.mpacbti-bet1-x86_64-arm-none-eabi/bin:$PATH"

Finally, I can re-open the Terminal and check if the ARM Toolchain is detected by checking its version.

Terminal window
$ arm-none-eabi-gcc --version
arm-none-eabi-gcc (Arm GNU Toolchain 12.2.MPACBTI-Bet1 (Build arm-12-mpacbti.16)) 12.2.0
# ...more text...

Supporting Tools Installation

The core tools are now ready, but I would like to install other software generally helpful when dealing with C/C++ code.

Terminal window
# Install make (already installed by build-essential)
sudo apt install make


# Install pkg-config
sudo apt install pkg-config


# Install lizard (code complexity analyzer)
python3 -m pip install lizard


# Install others (documentation, formatting, etc.)
sudo apt install doxygen cppcheck gcovr lcov clang-format clang-tidy clang-tools

I will explore the usage of these tools in later posts.

Text Editor Setup

Finally, I need a text editor. Everyone has their own favourite, and I am not here to discuss which one is the best. Personally, I find Visual Studio Code pleasant, so I installed this one.

In case you are using it too, you can find it useful to install the following extensions:

  • CMake (by twxs) → CMake syntax highlight
  • C/C++ (by Microsoft) → C/C++ language extension

Conclusion

If you followed this article, you should have all the tools necessary to write and build C/C++ code, including support for cross-compilation.

In the following posts, we will use them extensively.

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