2.2. Choose an Installation Prefix¶
You will see the term prefix referred to throughout this
documentation and in a wide number of software packages you can download from
the internet. It is also used in the
GNU Coding Standard.
A prefix is the path on your host computer a software package is installed
under. Packages that have a prefix will place all parts under the prefix
path. Packages for your host computer typically use a default prefix of
/usr/local
on FreeBSD and Linux.
You have to select a prefix for your installation. You will build and install the RTEMS tool suite, an RTEMS kernel for a BSP and you may build and install third party libraries. You can build them all as a stack with a single prefix or you can
The RTEMS tool suite consists of a cross tool chain (Binutils, GCC, GDB, Newlib, etc.) for your target architecture and other tools provided by the RTEMS Project. The RTEMS
You build and install the tool suite with the RTEMS Source Builder (RSB). By default, the RSB will start the prefix path with a host operating
system specific path plus rtems
plus the RTEMS version, e.g.
/opt/rtems/5
on Linux and /usr/local/rtems/5
on FreeBSD and
macOS.
It is strongly recommended to run the RSB as a normal user and not with
root privileges (also known as super user or Administrator). You have to
make sure that your normal user has sufficient privileges to create files and
directories under the prefix. For example, you can create a directory
/opt/rtems
and give it to a developer group with read, write and
execute permissions. Alternatively, you can choose a prefix in your home
directory, e.g. $HOME/rtems/5
or with a project-specific component
$HOME/project-x/rtems/5
. For more ideas, see the
project sandboxing section. In this quick start
chapter, we will choose $HOME/quick-start/rtems/5
for the RTEMS tool
suite prefix.
Warning
The prefix must not contain space characters.