Linux

Here are the installation commands for a few Linux distributions.

Ubuntu 20.04 or newer / Debian 10 or newer

NOTE gdb-multiarch is the GDB command you'll use to debug your ARM Cortex-M programs

$ sudo apt-get install \
  gdb-multiarch \
  minicom

Fedora 32 or newer

NOTE gdb is the GDB command you'll use to debug your ARM Cortex-M programs

$ sudo dnf install \
  gdb \
  minicom

Arch Linux

NOTE arm-none-eabi-gdb is the GDB command you'll use to debug your ARM Cortex-M programs

$ sudo pacman -S \
  arm-none-eabi-gdb \
  minicom

Other distros

NOTE arm-none-eabi-gdb is the GDB command you'll use to debug your ARM Cortex-M programs

For distros that don't have packages for ARM's pre-built toolchain, download the "Linux 64-bit" file and put its bin directory on your path. Here's one way to do it:

$ mkdir -p ~/local && cd ~/local
$ tar xjf /path/to/downloaded/file/gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2020-q2-update-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2

Then, use your editor of choice to append to your PATH in the appropriate shell init file (e.g. ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc):

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/local/gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2020-q2-update/bin

udev rules

These rules let you use USB devices like the micro:bit without root privilege, i.e. sudo.

Create this file in /etc/udev/rules.d with the content shown below.

$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/69-microbit.rules

# CMSIS-DAP for microbit

ACTION!="add|change", GOTO="microbit_rules_end"

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0d28", ATTR{idProduct}=="0204", TAG+="uaccess"

LABEL="microbit_rules_end"

Then reload the udev rules with:

$ sudo udevadm control --reload

If you had any board plugged to your computer, unplug them and then plug them in again, or run the following command.

$ sudo udevadm trigger

Now, go to the next section.