Compiling your first app

Getting Started

Navigate to sourcelib -> examples -> getting-started -> blink

Select your platform here, for most people this will be nucleo-f429. If you are an external student, you may have one of the other boards, check it carefully.

Compiling

Inside the platform folder, there should be a file called main.c and a file called Makefile. Execute the command: make

All the c files should now start building, when it finishes, there will be a main.bin file, main.elf file, main.hex file, and main.o file, as well as an obj directory.

Flashing Code

Now we are ready to flash, navigate back to the getting started, blinky makefile and execute

make flash

Accept any popups, the flasher will now cycle through the Compare, Erase, Program, Verify steps, after which the LED's on the Nucleo should start blinking.

Tips and Troubleshooting

• make clean cleans the compiled binaries, this is not always necessary when recompiling code, since not everything needs to be recompiled, however it is useful when a lot of changes have been made.
• make -j makes compiling faster by using all allocated cpu cores, note that when using a VM to make full use of this you would need to allocate more CPU cores in the VM settings
• if make complains about a .depend target, you open the makefile and change include .depend to -include .depend