Author Topic: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?  (Read 51872 times)

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Offline endevor100

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #50 on: March 11, 2018, 12:21:29 am »
I've been using the Eclipse package aimed at C/C++ Developers with minimal pain and suffering. If you are interested in a book to help you install and manage the toolchain I really liked Mastering STM32 on learnpub: https://leanpub.com/mastering-stm32. The author calls the version of the book 0.25 so it's a bit rough arouditing goes.
 

Offline Gixy

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #51 on: March 11, 2018, 08:31:54 am »
did you read previous posts?  8)
 

Offline voltsandjolts

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #52 on: March 11, 2018, 10:12:07 am »
a bit rough arouditing goes.
'arouditing'     :o
 

Offline Vasi

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #53 on: March 30, 2018, 03:40:52 pm »
I was amazed to see how easy is to set up Visual Studio Code for Linux as an IDE for STM32, using also the Cortex Debugger extension. After proper setup, all you need is to generate Makefile projects with STM32CubeMX and Low Level driver. You can install also the Arduino extension from Microsoft (requires Arduino IDE 1.8.x to be already installed on your home folder) from which you can use the serial console or for rapid prototyping.  I tried Atollic and it works well for me in Linux Fedora and that means also debugging but now I prefer the VScode solution.

https://community.st.com/thread/48130-visual-studio-code-with-cortex-debugger-package

BTW. no "platformio" infestation.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2018, 03:50:11 pm by Vasi »
 

Offline technix

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #54 on: March 30, 2018, 05:09:29 pm »
I was amazed to see how easy is to set up Visual Studio Code for Linux as an IDE for STM32, using also the Cortex Debugger extension. After proper setup, all you need is to generate Makefile projects with STM32CubeMX and Low Level driver. You can install also the Arduino extension from Microsoft (requires Arduino IDE 1.8.x to be already installed on your home folder) from which you can use the serial console or for rapid prototyping.  I tried Atollic and it works well for me in Linux Fedora and that means also debugging but now I prefer the VScode solution.

https://community.st.com/thread/48130-visual-studio-code-with-cortex-debugger-package

BTW. no "platformio" infestation.
Can VSCode work without Cube involvement?
 

Offline Vasi

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #55 on: March 30, 2018, 06:48:06 pm »
Can VSCode work without Cube involvement?

Yes, definitely, but you must rely on Makefile, no matter which code you have.
 

Offline technix

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #56 on: March 30, 2018, 07:14:49 pm »
Can VSCode work without Cube involvement?

Yes, definitely, but you must rely on Makefile, no matter which code you have.
How does debugging work then? Can I step into the code, peek into peripheral registers, or even manipulate memory on the fly?
 

Offline Vasi

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #57 on: March 30, 2018, 07:20:44 pm »
Step into the code, breakpoints, see the registers, don't know about manipulating memory on the fly, but the Cortex-Debug extension is on the github, https://github.com/Marus/cortex-debug , read the readme from there.
 

Offline lewiss66

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #58 on: April 13, 2018, 05:56:38 pm »
Have you heard about Sloeber?
http://eclipse.baeyens.it/
This is an IDE eclipse based. I downloaded the stm32duino libraries package and it worked for my stm32f103c8 bluepill named board.
What I like about Sloeber Eclipse IDE is that it is arduino C++ oriented, meaning easy to implement codes and then you can use print() and read() arduino commands plus the serial monitor to communicate right out of the box!

(Do not need as well stlinkV2 since after downloading the arduino specific bootloader it allows to directly communicate via on board USB device..)

I'm not sure if Truestudio allow all that options or maybe it has changed but not for free!

The only drawback of sloeber is that the debbuger is not really already working.
What do you think of it vs atollic?
« Last Edit: April 13, 2018, 06:04:05 pm by lewiss66 »
 

Offline Vasi

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #59 on: April 13, 2018, 07:58:25 pm »
As an Arduino IDE, the Visual Studio Code is great. TrueStudio now is a dedicated IDE to STM32 development, with truly professional tools. It it will continue to be developed by ST.M. so it will be the one to recommend.
 

Offline lewiss66

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #60 on: April 14, 2018, 06:25:36 am »
As an Arduino IDE, the Visual Studio Code is great. TrueStudio now is a dedicated IDE to STM32 development, with truly professional tools. It it will continue to be developed by ST.M. so it will be the one to recommend.
Yes VS is not totallt free to be able to use the full package. Neither Truestudio if you want to be able to use the serial monitor or it has changed now.

Envoyé de mon LG-H850 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Offline Vasi

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #61 on: April 14, 2018, 05:53:21 pm »
1. When I say Visual Studio Code (which can be used with Arduino extension and that include also a serial terminal), I don't say Visual Studio IDE. The first is free, cross platform and with no limits, the second is commercial and Windows only - do your research.

2. TrueStudio today is completely free, full featured (including all the professional features), no restrictions - again, do your research.
 
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Online Smokey

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #62 on: November 11, 2018, 08:49:53 am »
bump. 

I'm in the same boat now.  I have the Mastering STM32 Toolchain up and running, but I'm not super happy with the STM32CubeMX workflow since I'm going to have to regenerate the Cube code while I work out configuration issues and all that copying isn't very friendly.
This toolchain is essentially outlined here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/what-do-you-think-of-this-stm32-toolchain-10-software-installations/
Full Toolchain setup in sample pdf for the book: http://samples.leanpub.com/mastering-stm32-sample.pdf

Any disadvantages to the ST owned TrueStudio vs the pieced together MasteringSTM32 toolchain?
 

Online Smokey

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #63 on: December 19, 2018, 11:32:29 am »
Just a quick update...

I've been running the now ST Owned Atollic TrueStudio since that last post.  Very happy with this toolchain and it's integration to STM32CubeMX and debugging setup.  This is WAY more straightforward than the thing in "Mastering STM32".  The whole idea of needing a custom python script to translate between STM32CubeMX and Eclipse is a little insane.

While Mastering STM32 is still a really good reference for everything else, anyone picking it up now should just skip all that stuff about setting up your toolchain from scratch and just run TrueStudio.
 

Offline Karel

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #64 on: December 19, 2018, 04:34:01 pm »
While Mastering STM32 is still a really good reference for everything else, anyone picking it up now should just skip all that stuff about setting up your toolchain from scratch and just run TrueStudio.

Mastering STM32 is NOT good for mastering STM32. It's good for mastering the HAL.

I tried to set up Eclipse and the toolchain following the steps in the book and I was not able to get it working.
Then I downloaded and installed System Workbench and everything worked out of the box.
I used one of the Nucleo devkits to learn to master the STM32.

I use CubeMX to help me to setup the clocks and pinmux etc. but I never use the code produced by it.
I don't use and I don't link the HAL. It's a bit harder in the beginning but then you really learn how to program the STM32.
I wrote my own libs for serial port, I2C, SPI. I use interrupts, DMA and the ADC. I believe it's the only way to write lean and efficient code.

I never use the debugger. If something doesn't work as expected, I print messages/values to a serial port or I manipulate a gpio pin to track interrupt service routines.

 
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Offline radioactive

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #65 on: December 19, 2018, 05:30:59 pm »
Also, GCC compiler is troublesome in some cases.
How so?
I'd like to know that too. I have not run into problems for the past >10 years of using GCC for ARM.

Same here.  GCC for ARM been working good for about 10 years for me as well.  In the beginning,  I used crosstool-ng to fetch/compile the environment, but these days the launchpad version, that appears to have been recently taken over by ARM works great (it has worked great for some years now).   Just need that, a linker script, Makefile, and Vi.  GCC served me well for Stellaris, NXP (back when they had downloadable peripheral libraries), and STM32.

Up until recently, I just used the "legacy" stm32 libraries for the stm32 M4 parts.  Just started using CubeMX to get things configured/initialized since I am switching to M7 cores.   I had troubles on my first try with the CubeMx/F7 series, but H7 seems to be going very smooth (and very fast!) other than some issues I'm having with HAL / spi drivers.  (could only get the interrupt driven functions to work).
 

Offline zelea2

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #66 on: January 15, 2019, 08:47:58 pm »
I'm surprised nobody mentioned Rowley Crossworks
https://www.rowley.co.uk/arm/index.htm
The license for non-comercial use is just 150$ and it has support for a lot of ARM processors and boards.
The compiler is GCC or LLVM based and the IDE is very fast and responsive (written in C++).
I particularly like the debugging interface and all the supported targets: St-Link/V2, Segger J-Link etc.
It also includes an ARM simulator.
 

Offline ehughes

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #67 on: January 15, 2019, 08:56:12 pm »
Segger Embedded Studio
 

Offline Doctorandus_P

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #68 on: January 23, 2019, 11:28:29 am »
Choosing an IDE can be a pretty personal choice if you're picky.
I think CubeMx can spit out makefiles for projects, and then you're free to use any IDE you happen to fancy.
I have been using Qt Creator with a makefile as IDE for my AVR uC projects for some time as it seems to have the right balance between funcionality and complexity for me.

You can also have a look at Platformio.
In it's basic form it is a collection of python scripts based around scons, but you can also install it with a full IDE. A year or so ago they used Atom as IDE, and that seems to be a quite capable IDE, but it seems they have switched to another lately. I was still content with Qt Creator, so I only  fiddled a bit with the command line scripts of Platformio.

Platformio does have an enourmous amount of options. You can configure projects from Arduino, to Mbed, CMSIS, and a bunch of other frameworks, and it makes the setup of an unfamiliar uC architecture pretty trivial. It can grab complete tool chains from the 'net and install them on your PC. It also has a search engine for browsing and installing thousands of software libraries and this makes it fast to find and try out support code for a lot of supported chips.

For example, a command like:
:~$ platformio lib search max7219
spits out a list of 13 different libraries.
 

Offline Gibson486

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #69 on: January 23, 2019, 02:25:39 pm »
I am not sure why anyone would use anything other than Attolic or Workbench for STM32 stuff when starting out. Even CubeMX is pleading a case to all the haters. Gone are the days of having to pay for a toolchain. It is all vendor provided now. Where I work, we have used cubeMX as our starter, and then you do whatever you'd like. The strict software team likes Linux and command line, the EE side likes the Attolic or Workbench. And, if planned correctly, it all works when it is eventually brought together (well...most of the time).

That mastering STM32 is alright, but it was made at a time when STM32 was just like every other vendor in that the tool chain situation was a mess unless you paid for it (remember coocox?). At that time, Freescale was on to something (that free IDE at the time was pretty good, but their code generation was pretty bad), but NXP bought them and ST just went forward. ST's LL library is actually pretty nice and you can mix and match with the HAL, even when you use cubeMX. The only thing ST needs to work on is their demo code. Their demo code is trash.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 02:40:28 pm by Gibson486 »
 

Offline Gibson486

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #70 on: January 23, 2019, 02:29:37 pm »
Also, GCC compiler is troublesome in some cases.
How so?
I'd like to know that too. I have not run into problems for the past >10 years of using GCC for ARM.

Same here.  GCC for ARM been working good for about 10 years for me as well.  In the beginning,  I used crosstool-ng to fetch/compile the environment, but these days the launchpad version, that appears to have been recently taken over by ARM works great (it has worked great for some years now).   Just need that, a linker script, Makefile, and Vi.  GCC served me well for Stellaris, NXP (back when they had downloadable peripheral libraries), and STM32.

Up until recently, I just used the "legacy" stm32 libraries for the stm32 M4 parts.  Just started using CubeMX to get things configured/initialized since I am switching to M7 cores.   I had troubles on my first try with the CubeMx/F7 series, but H7 seems to be going very smooth (and very fast!) other than some issues I'm having with HAL / spi drivers.  (could only get the interrupt driven functions to work).

FYI...I have the same issue with the SPI drivers.
 

Offline radioactive

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #71 on: January 23, 2019, 07:18:31 pm »
FYI...I have the same issue with the SPI drivers.

I'm assembling a new board today.  Would like to hear if you get it figured out.  I'll post if I figure out something.  It has been low priority for me so far, since the interrupt functions are working ok.
 

Offline radiolistener

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #72 on: January 23, 2019, 08:52:59 pm »
Has someone tried? Is debugging working?
It will not work. This board does not have a debugger, it will only work with Arduino IDE and its bootlaoder.

that's not true, I'm using it with STLINKv2 from aliexpress, both cost for about 1.5 USD.
You can debug program inside chip through SWD interface with no problem.
If your program printf a bunch of text, it will be very slow, because SWD speed is slow.
But for usual debugging purposes it is fast enough.
 

Offline Gibson486

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #73 on: January 23, 2019, 09:26:56 pm »
FYI...I have the same issue with the SPI drivers.

I'm assembling a new board today.  Would like to hear if you get it figured out.  I'll post if I figure out something.  It has been low priority for me so far, since the interrupt functions are working ok.

Same here. Low priority.

Is the problem only when you are transferring more that 8 bits? I think someone found a work around. You have to just transfer the 8 bits one call at a time.
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 09:28:38 pm by Gibson486 »
 

Offline max_torque

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Re: What is the best free IDE for the STM32 mixrocontrollers ?
« Reply #74 on: January 25, 2019, 03:22:34 pm »
well, after a few weeks trying to work with Atollic TrueStudio, what can i say, other than "gosh, this is easily some of the worst,least intuitive, hardest to actually use, software i've ever had the misfortune to use"....!

Seriously, could they even manage to design in any more menus within menus, tiny buttons with hieroglyphic images, , more different views, and no obvious workflow at all!

How does anyone use this crap??

 
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