Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Ricardo Brandão]

Hi,

I've just acquired a Beaglebone black and I'm trying to run a simple program in Ada.

I tried to install gnat but apt-get install gnat or anything similar doesn't work.

I didn't find any place with the repository, nor any tutorial.

How it the best way to run Ada in the BBB? 

Thanks

Re: Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On 09/08/2020 16:39, Ricardo Brandão wrote:

> I've just acquired a Beaglebone black and I'm trying to run a simple program in Ada.
> 
> I tried to install gnat but apt-get install gnat or anything similar doesn't work.
> 
> I didn't find any place with the repository, nor any tutorial.
> 
> How it the best way to run Ada in the BBB?

What distribution? APT suggests Debian or Ubuntu. In any case I would do 
a full upgrade to the latest version of either.

Under Debian buster you should do

   apt install gnat-8

Under Ubuntu it would be

   apt install gnat-10

And also:

   apt install gprbuild

If these do not work check /etc/apt/sources.list

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 07:39:58 -0700 (PDT), Ricardo Brandão
<rbrandao.br@gmail.com> declaimed the following:


	FYI: "ADA" (all caps) is NOT a programming language -- "Ada" is a
proper name (from Ada Lovelace -- I can never recall if it's Ada Augusta or
Augusta Ada). All caps is, among others "American Dental Association".


>I've just acquired a Beaglebone black and I'm trying to run a simple program in Ada.
>
>I tried to install gnat but apt-get install gnat or anything similar doesn't work.

	What did they display? You did have a network connection at the time?
(The USB connection is not suitable unless the host computer is configured
for "Internet Connection Sharing" or the equivalent).

	Had you run "apt update" first?

>I didn't find any place with the repository, nor any tutorial.

debian@beaglebone:~$ apt search gnat
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
<SNIP>
gnat/stable,now 8.0.1 all [installed]
  GNU Ada compiler

gnat-7/stable 7.4.0-6 armhf
  GNU Ada compiler

gnat-7-sjlj/stable 7.4.0-6 armhf
  GNU Ada compiler (setjump/longjump runtime library)

gnat-8/stable,now 8.3.0-6 armhf [installed,automatic]
  GNU Ada compiler

gnat-8-sjlj/stable 8.3.0-6 armhf
  GNU Ada compiler (setjump/longjump runtime library)

gnat-gps-common/stable 18-5 all
  integrated development environment for C and Ada (common files)

gnat-gps-doc/stable 18-5 all
  integrated development environment for C and Ada (documentation)

gnat-mingw-w64/stable 8.3.0-6+21.3~deb10u1 all
  GNU Ada compiler for MinGW-w64

<SNIP>

libgnat-7/stable 7.4.0-6 armhf
  runtime for applications compiled with GNAT (shared library)

libgnat-7-dbg/stable 7.4.0-6 armhf
  runtime for applications compiled with GNAT (debugging symbols)

libgnat-8/stable,now 8.3.0-6 armhf [installed,automatic]
  runtime for applications compiled with GNAT (shared library)

libgnat-8-alpha-cross/stable 8.3.0-2cross2 all
  runtime for applications compiled with GNAT (shared library)

<SNIP -- surprised I show tons of cross build libraries and compilers>

libgnatcoll-doc/stable 18-4 all
  GNATColl, general purpose Ada library (documentation)

libgnatcoll-gmp17-dev/stable 18-2 armhf
  GNATColl, general purpose Ada library (GMP)

libgnatcoll-gmp18/stable 18-2 armhf
  GNATColl, general purpose Ada library (GMP runtime)

libgnatcoll-iconv17-dev/stable 18-2 armhf
  GNATColl, general purpose Ada library (iconv)

libgnatcoll-iconv18/stable 18-2 armhf
  GNATColl, general purpose Ada library (iconv runtime)

<SNIP>

libgpr18/stable 2018-6 armhf
  support for programs processing GNAT projects (runtime)

libgpr2-dev/stable 2018-6 armhf
  support for programs processing GNAT projects (development)
<SNIP>
debian@beaglebone:~$

	
>How it the best way to run Ada in the BBB? 
>

	Based upon what I show

sudo apt install gnat
OR
sudo apt install gnat-8

should suffice.

	You will NOT have access to the GPS graphical IDE, unless you also
install a working X-window stack -- current standard Beaglebone images tend
to be "IoT"; putting X-Window on the eMMC leaves practically no space for
doing anything -- and even "apt upgrade" may fail due to lack of space if
it has been some time since the image had been made.

debian@beaglebone:~$ apt search gps
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
<SNIP>
gnat-gps-common/stable 18-5 all
  integrated development environment for C and Ada (common files)

gnat-gps-doc/stable 18-5 all
  integrated development environment for C and Ada (documentation)
<SNIP>
debian@beaglebone:~$



-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
	wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/

Re: Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Philip Munts]

Depending on what you want to accomplish (i.e. whether it needs the full Debian OS), and whether you are willing and able to do cross-compilation, I think that MuntsOS (https://github.com/pmunts/muntsos) is the easiest way to develop and run Ada programs on a BeagleBone or Raspberry Pi.

I have found that installing and maintaining and especially configuring I/O with Debian on a BeagleBone to be a pain in the nether regions.  In contrast, I have attempted to make MuntsOS as easy to use as possible.  Its only real downside is that it requires cross-toolchains running on a Linux (preferably Debian or Ubuntu) development host.  Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL1 or WSL2) works perfectly well for the development host, though.

Re: Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Ricardo Brandão]

Hi Dmitry
 
> What distribution? 

The distro that came with the board, in the case Debian Jessie

$ head -n1 /etc/issue
Debian GNU/Linux 8 \n \l


> APT suggests Debian or Ubuntu. In any case I would do 
> a full upgrade to the latest version of either.

Yes, I ran sudo apg-get update and gnat appear in apt-cache search gnat

> 
> Under Debian buster you should do
> 
>    apt install gnat-8
> And also:
> 
>    apt install gprbuild
> 

I ran these commands and worked fine. 

Thank you so much

--
Ricardo Brandão

Re: Running ADA on Beaglebone Black

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Sun, 9 Aug 2020 12:56:35 -0700 (PDT), Ricardo Brandão
<rbrandao.br@gmail.com> declaimed the following:

>Hi Dmitry
> 
>> What distribution? 
>
>The distro that came with the board, in the case Debian Jessie
>

	<OUCH> That is ancient... Superceded by Stretch and Buster

	I'd really recommend obtaining an uSD card, downloading a recent image
(won't have X-Window system), writing the image to the SD card, and
verifying the card will boot (depending on how old the existing u-boot is,
you may need to hold down the boot select button when applying power).

	After confirming the SD card is bootable (and maybe installing GNAT, et
al.), convert the card to a flasher image (typically uncomment the last
line in /boot/uEnv.txt) and reboot. Make sure you have a 5V supply in the
barrel connector -- USB power is not guaranteed to support a full eMMC
flashing operation.

	After flashing, remove the SD card (if you leave it in and reboot it
will repeat the flashing operation), and reboot -- the eMMC should now have
Debian Buster on it. To use the SD card without rewriting the image you
need to mount it into a running system, navigate to the card's
/boot/uEnv.txt, and recomment the last line.


-- 
	Wulfraed                 Dennis Lee Bieber         AF6VN
	wlfraed@ix.netcom.com    http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/