Microcross X-Tools license help?

if the hostid is just a mac address on a network card or the hard drives serial number you could just change them on the new machine to match the original license

-Lasse

Do you still have the original install disk? If so then try a clean install

on a new system.

It looks like they took the gnu arm tool chain and reworked it to support a freescale processor. That's why I shy away from $$$ tools if opensource is available. The "lifetime" purchase is their lifetime, not yours.

Sad to see anyone go out of business but it would be nice if when a company

folds that they could release all their code to opensource so that all their

old customers aren't screwed.

John Eaton

--------------------------------------- Posted through

I considered that but there are other licenses involved that would fail if the hostid changed.

Scott

I downloaded a copy of gcc-4.2.0 to build. I believe the only difference is that the Microcross version checks for a license. Other than that I suspect it's plain ole GCC for PPC Elf.

Scott

It is a bit old. If you're going to build one afresh, go to the GNU pages and get the newest one (4.8.0).

You need also the binary utilities, GNU binutils, which contain amongst other necessities, the assembler and linker.

Also, you need some C runtime library. I'm using newlib for it. The compiler build needs some support libraries, which are mentioned in the compiler package.

For instructions, Google for GCC Cross Compiler.

If this is Linux you can change the MAC address on a per-process basis:

Theo

You could also look at CodeSourcery (now part of Mentor). They provide ready-build gcc toolchains. Compared to Microcross, you get several advantages:

They are one of the main groups developing and maintaining gcc, so you get it from the gcc experts. You also get the latest patches and device support before it makes it into mainline gcc (but you can be confident that it /will/ make it into mainline - as the gcc maintainers for the PPC port, they will accept their own patches!).

They are part of Mentor Graphics, and are unlikely to go out of business in the near future.

You get top-quality support - the free support is excellent, and I expect the paid support contracts to be even better.

You pay a small price to get the toolchain integrated with debugger and extra libraries. You can pay more for more support, libraries, and other features - your choice;

You can get the free toolchain-only package from them - it is not locked to any nodes, and has full source available. This gives you future proofing.

(I haven't used Codesource for the PPC - for various reasons I've had to use CodeWarrior. But I've used them for ARM and Coldfire.)

I've used the free version from CodeSourcery, as well. They officially update it every 6 months. This is less often than they do for products where they receive a fee. But still often enough for reasonable use. Support for free versions is essentially lowest priority, but again better than nothing.

Very nice that they are out there doing this.

Jon

Free version support is now mainly through forums at Mentor, though the old mailing lists still exist and the CodeSourcery folks follow them. As with all such free support, much of it comes from other users - but the CodeSourcery people follow them and help out too. Clearly they have to make a living, and give priority to those that pay for support - but you definitely get the feeling that the CodeSoucery people care about what they are doing.

And because you know that these people are major contributors to gcc (and related tools), buying their commercial packages gives you a warm fuzzy feeling that you don't get with other commercial gcc packagers. (I am not saying that folk like Code Red, Microchip, etc., do not give back to gcc - I'm sure they do, but not nearly to the extent of Code Sourcery.)

Thanks for all the suggestions. I downloaded a copy of 4.2 and will build that. Because this is for a safety-critical project, the same version of the compiler must be used.

Scott