ARM Development with Code::Blocks IDE
I was searching around for IDEs with GDB support I could potentially use on Windows, and I didn’t find many. There was of course Eclipse, which as you might know I really don’t like, there are a few small text editors that support invoking Makefiles, and then there was Code::Blocks. Code::Blocks looks really nifty. The setup is only 4mb, and it installed with no problems. My first impressions were that it was robust, capable of handling a wide variety of projects, and definitely configurable.
It defaults to using a specified compiler and on-the-fly writing of its own makefile based on your project. After messing around a bit, I found out in the faq how to set the IDE to use a custom makefile. Code::Blocks now calls a custom makefile with make and builds ARM project code perfectly (easily compiled the demo lpc2148 project).
The IDE, along with all of the standard features you would expect, supports debugging, specifically with GDB. This is very useful, and once I figure it out, it can be my complete replacement for the memory-eating Eclipse. I’ve been running Code::Blocks for a while now, and it is using under 10mb of memory. Code::Blocks’ GUI is built on the wxWidgets toolkit (cross-platform).
Soon I’ll post a guide to setting it up to use custom Makefiles, and when I figure it out, setting it up to use OCDRemote and gdb for ARM debugging.
