Microcross has achieved a major release of its commercially supported GNU toolchains for embedded Linux development. GNU X-Tools v4.0 includes tested, modified, commercially supported toolchains based on stable releases of GNU compilers, debuggers, and other tools. It is available for six processor families — optionally with a visual development environment.

GNU X-Tools v4.0 is Microcross's sixth release in seven years, the company says. The commercial toolsuite was last updated in November of 2004, when X-Tools v3.4 shipped.

GNU X-Tools v4.0 includes patched, tested, branded, and supported versions of the following GNU tools, built by Microcross for both Linux and Windows development hosts:

• GNU compiler collection (GCC) 4.1.1
• binutils v2.17 (includes LD linker, AR archiver, AS assembler, ISS instruction set simulator, and so on)
• Visual GNU debugger (GDB), also known as Insight v6.5

Additionally, an optional Visual X-Tools graphical integrated development environment (IDE) is available. The IDE is based on a customized version of Visual SlickEdit.

GNU X-Tools v4.0 toolsuites are available for six embedded processor families. Most of the v4.0 toolsuites have gained support for new processors, along with strict conformance to C99 support, according to the company. Supported processor families include:

• ARM
• M68K/ColdFire
• MIPS
• PowerPC
• SuperH
• XScale

Previous GNU X-Tools releases supported additional processor families, including AVR, H8300, i386, M32R/D, M6811/12, M-CORE, SPARC, and V850.

Touted new features and capabilities of the v4.0 GNU X-Tools toolsuites include:

• Additional support for the ARM v6j cores (e.g., arm1176jf-s, iwmmxt, ep9312, and more) into the toolsuite along with improved (faster) software floating point support
• Addition of M68K/ColdFire 53xx and 54xx target and library support as well as an instruction set simulator
• PowerPC AltiVec and Power5+ support enhancements are in this latest release
• MIPS toolsuite has added new targets: MIPS-3D ASE and Broadcom SB-1
• SuperH support added for SH4a and SH4al-dsp
• Strict conformance to C99 support for all targets
• Close-out of bug fixes in GCC v4.x.x over previous v3.4.x releases
• Additional improvements in GCC v4.1.1, as listed here

Availability

GNU X-Tools v4.0 toolsuites are available now for M68K/ColdFire, ARM, MIPS32, PowerPC, SuperH, and XScale, priced at $1,000 per seat, including 30-day setup support. The SlickEdit-based Visual X-Tools IDE adds $600. Yearly support subscriptions cost $500, including telephone and email support, a training guide, and free upgrades, according to the company.

Thirty-day trial versions are available for all architectures except M68K/ColdFire.

 
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