4.4. Apple macOS

Apple’s macOS is supported. You need to download and install a recent version of the Apple developer application Xcode. Xcode is available in the App Store. Make sure you install the Command Line Tools add on available for download within Xcode and once installed open a Terminal shell and enter the command cc and accept the license agreement.

The normal prefix when working on macOS as a user is under your home directory. Prefixes of $HOME/development/rtems or $HOME/rtems are suitable.

Choose an Installation Prefix details using Prefixes to manage the installation.

Homebrew and Macports should work but are not tested by the project as they are rolling releases making it difficult to reproduce any problems there may be. We recommend reaching out to those projects for support.

Intel and Apple silicon is supported.

4.4.1. Python

Building GDB requires the installation of Python’s development libraries. Building GDB includes the Python runtime header Python.h and linking to the Python runtime libraries. The RSB detects a valid header and libraries before starting a GDB build.

It is recommended you run the RSB in a Python virtual environment. A virtual environment manages paths for you, provides a python executable mapped to the version the virtual environment is built with and a command to find the appropiate runtime header and library files GDB needs. Virtual environments make it easier to update Python to a newer version if this is needed.

Apple has removed support for Python’s development libraries from recent versions of MacOS as users can manage Python using the installer packages provided by the Python project.

To install:

  1. Download a Python installer for MacOS from https://www.python.org/.

  2. Run the installer and install Python.

  3. Open a terminal and update your shell profile using the command Python provides. For Python 3.12 the command is:

    /Applications/Python\ 3.12/Update\ Shell\ Profile.command

    Check with:

    % type python3.12
python3.12 is /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.12/bin/python3.12

  4. Create a virtual environment:

    mkdir $HOME/development/rtems
cd $HOME/development/rtems
python3.12 -m venv py3.12

    Activate the virtual environment:

    . $HOME/development/rtems/py3.12/bin/activate

    You are now ready to the build the tools within the virtual environment.

4.4.2. Sonoma

The RSB is supported on Sonoma and Applie silicon.

4.4.3. Ventura

The RSB is supported on Ventura and Intel silicon.

4.4.4. Monterey

The RSB is supported on Ventura and Intel silicon.

4.4.5. Catalina

In the macOS Catalina 10.15 Release Notes Apple deprecated several scripting language runtimes such as Python 2.7. See also Xcode 11 Release Notes. Due to the deprecated Python 2.7 support, we recommend to install and use the latest Python 3 release from python.org.

4.4.6. Sierra

The RSB works on Sierra with the latest Xcode.

4.4.7. Mavericks

The RSB works on Mavericks and the GNU tools can be built for RTEMS using the Mavericks clang LLVM tool chain. You will need to build and install a couple of packages to make the RSB pass the sb-check. These are CVS and XZ. You can get these tools from a packaging tool for macOS such as MacPorts or HomeBrew.

I do not use third-party packaging on macOS and prefer to build the packages from source using a prefix of /usr/local. There are good third-party packages around however they sometimes bring in extra dependence and that complicates my build environment and I want to know the minimal requirements when building tools. The following are required:

. The XZ package’s home page is http://tukaani.org/xz/ and I use version

5.0.5. XZ builds and installs cleanly.