2. Tools

You will need the pilot-link, prc-tools, gcc, binutils, and gdb software distributions. In order to install these tools, you should have make, gcc, patch and the ncurses libraries already installed on your Linux system.

References to files from the tools packages will be relative to their installation prefix directory.

2.1 pilot-link

If you have not done so already, you should install the pilot-link software, as described in http://www.orbits.com/ HOWTO.html. Included in the pilot-link suite of tools is pilot-xfer, which will be used to install PalmOS applications.

2.2 prc-tools

The prc-tools package is a complete set of development tools built from the FSF GNU utilities, compiler and debugger, with the addition of a few special tools. This is the software that allows us to develop Palm OS software on a Linux system.

There is not much in the way of documentation, but you might want to look at the Pilot Software Development web page at http://www.massena.com/darrin/pilot/.

Installing prc-tools

Download the most recent version of prc-tools from ftp://ryeham.ee.ryerson.ca/pub/PalmOS. The GNU tools can be retrieved from ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu. Get binutils-2.7.tar.gz, gcc-2.7.2.2.tar.gz and gdb-4.16.tar.gz. The version numbers specified for the GNU tools are correct as of prc-tools release 0.5.0. Later releases of prc-tools may require newer versions of the GNU tools.

Put all of the distribution packages in one directory. Unpack only the prc-tools distribution. The prc-tools Makefile will take care of the other packages. By default, prc-tools will be installed in /usr/local/gnu. If you want them installed somewhere else, you need to change the value of INSTALLDIR in Makefile. Change the value of GNUARCH to the directory in which you have placed the distribution files for the GNU tools. (There is no need to unpack them, the make process will take care of that.)

The steps are:

tar -xvzf prc-tools.0.5.0.tar.gz
cd prc-tools-0.5.0
  (Edit Makefile, if necessary.)
make gnuuntar                                                              
make patch                                                                 
  (I found, on a Debian Linux system, that I needed to replace the termcap
  references in gbd-4.16/gdb/Makefile.in and gbd-4.16/readline/Makefile.in
  with references to the ncurses library.)
make gnutools
  (Now, as root:)
make
make install

Using prc-tools

One good reference for general use of prc-tools is the example directory, particularly the Makefile. The tutorial will lead you through compiling a Palm OS application.