Status of "baremetal" Pico SDK as a PlatformIO framework

Development Platforms
1

I’m a new user of the PIO/Pico/RP2040, and it has taken me a lot of reading to get here, so hopefully someone can confirm/clarify my understanding thus far:

As @maxgerhardt posted here: #include "pico/stdlib.h" causes errors - #6 by maxgerhardt

There are currently 3 platforms available for targeting the Pico/RP2040 in PlatformIO, only Max’s extension of the earlephilhower core and the wizio-pico support the official RPi SDK.

To the best of my understanding, Max’s extension offers partial support for the official SDK whilst Wizio’s offers the full SDK.

It appears the wizio-pico repo was sadly discontinued by the original author @wizio , and as a result there appear to be at least 3 dozen forks of the last PR from a fork of the original repo: https://github.com/blackketter/wizio-pico.

None of these forks appear to be actively maintained, some last updated in 2022 some in early 2023. This currently appears to be the most recent: https://github.com/ec-solutions/ez-pico

The original author has also updated 2 new repos relatively recently seemingly related to the original repo:
https://github.com/Wiz-IO/framework-wizio-pico
https://github.com/Wiz-IO/wizio-pico-examples

So my question really boils down to where I place my bet…

Solutions…

  1. I could follow the other 36+ forks and try and maintain my own standalone fork, which seems like a broken approach long-term. I’m fairly certain I can’t be the only one reluctant to base their project off an unmaintained build environment.

  2. @maxgerhardt your extension contains the full SDK is it possible to target the full SDK without including the (any) Arduino core?

  • Could you clarify why I can’t pull in headers in rp2_common but I can include from common and rp2040? Eg. I can’t #include "pico/malloc.h" but I can #include "pico/multicore.h" and #include "hardware/structs/systick.h" I don’t really understand the PIO setup here.

  1. Is there an approach where we can integrate some of wizio-pico into your work so at least we can have a common codebase and take advantage of all the board defs in the Earle Philhower core?

  2. Lastly, if not, would you have any suggestions on building a baremetal-pico platform that might get community support to remain actively maintained?

Thoughts much appreciated, especially those that might avoid any foot-shooting and yak shaving…

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2

The Arduino-Pico core allows programming against the SDK (currently 1.5.1, latest one) like the docs say. There is however no way to disable the compilation of the Arduino core files – alas, if you don’t use any of the Arduino functions, most should be thrown out by the linker though. For some things though, you have to go through the Arduino functions. And whether that programming is done in the Arduino IDE or in PlatformIO doesn’t matter.

Currently I don’t know of a PlatformIO platform like WizIO’s that has gives pure access to latest Pico-SDK and I’m not working on one.

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3

Thanks for that update

I’ll try again with the earlephilhower core and see if I can pull in those headers from the SDK I mentioned that failed.

For anyone interested, regarding the wizio-pico platform. The best fork I found was this one which has the SDK1.4 enabled: GitHub - practichem/wizio-pico: Raspberry Pi Pico development platform for PlatformIO.

This pulls in the framework-wizio-pico framework and 2 other packages from the original author.

I’ve now forked the platform and those 3 original repos and updated the platform.json in wizio-pico to those forks just to avoid any more repos being randomly deleted that I might depend on.

I have to say the build and upload is rapid, and noticeably faster than with the Arduino core. repack-sdk.py in tool-wizio-pico appears to re-package the original SDK and flatten the file structure, which might be the reason… which is also going to make it harder to reason about.

If I can figure this out I might try and integrate SDK1.5 etc, however I’m a low level JavaScript guy normally so Python isn’t really in my toolbox… we’ll see.

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4

I’m not sure why you would need to include that file at all. That just has 4 defines.

If you want malloc(), do #include <stdlib.h>.

5

Hi

I am relatively very new at this and specially at Raspberry Pi Pico, I tried using normal Pico SDK and it was working and then suddenly cmake stopped and I could not figure out anything so I switched to platformIO which is working fairly but I want to access Pico specific functions and I am trying for hours now, I am trying different platforms but they always end up with weird errors, I tried Arduino Pico, it doesn´t work and gives me this error about missing commands from git. And someone on git told me that Arduino Pico is for some other arduino core (Whatever that means). And now I am trying this what you mentioned (I have attached contents of the file below), as you mentioned and it gives me this error

Verbose mode can be enabled via -v, --verbose option

Error: Unknown board ID ‘pico’

It refers to this file platform.ini

;

; Build options: build flags, source filter

; Upload options: custom upload port, speed and extra flags

; Library options: dependencies, extra library storages

; Advanced options: extra scripting

;

; Please visit documentation for the other options and examples

; Redirecting...

[env:pico]

platform = GitHub - practichem/wizio-pico: Raspberry Pi Pico development platform for PlatformIO

board = pico

framework = baremetal

upload_protocol = picotool

I understand that this could be somewhat a basic issue but I would really appreciate if someone can help me on this. Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

6

The issue is in the error you have posted: Error: Unknown board ID ‘pico’ You have specified an invalid board name in your platform.ini. The board name is very specific and map a boards unique configuration back to a standard one.

If you want to use Platform.IO with the Pico SDK below is a minimal generic platform.ini file that I currently use, with the forks I made of the original wizio-pico platform & frameworks against SDK v1.4.

You can find specifically supported boards by the Arduino core here: https://github.com/earlephilhower/arduino-pico/tree/master/variants and import your specific pins_arduino.h in your code.
Or use these definitions: https://github.com/Tactory/framework-wizio-pico/tree/main/SDK/boards/boards which map to the Pico conventions.

[env]
lib_ldf_mode = chain+

[env:native]
platform = native
build_flags = -std=c++11
lib_deps = 
	${env.lib_deps}

[env:pico]
platform = https://github.com/Tactory/wizio-pico.git
board = raspberry-pi-pico
framework = baremetal

build_flags =
    -D PICO_CYW43_ARCH_NONE
    -D PICO_STDIO_USB              ; enable stdio over USB 
build_unflags = 
    -fno-rtti
    -D PICO_STDIO_UART 
    -D PICO_CYW43_ARCH_POLL        ; select wifi driver mode

It’s also worthwhile looking at this: GitHub - Wiz-IO/wizio-pico-examples: Raspberry Pi Pico development platform for PlatformIO - Examples as it shows both baremetal and arduino (note the lowercase a) framework integration in the example platform.ini for each.

2 Likes
7

Thank You so much, the setup is running now. But I cannot use serial monitor. No port seems to be connected so I cannot turn any specific ports´s output on serial monitor. Can you help in this?

8

Have you initialised the Pico SDK?

Your main function must call stdio_init_all(); and should look something like this:

#include "pico/stdlib.h"

int main() {
  stdio_init_all();
  // Your code
}

It sounds like you might need to spend some time reading through the example published by Raspberry PI: GitHub - raspberrypi/pico-examples

9

I get this when I include this
src\main.cpp:10:17: error: expected constructor, destructor, or type conversion before ‘;’ token
stdio_init_all();
^
compilation terminated due to -Wfatal-errors.
*** [.pio\build\pico-dap\src\main.cpp.o] Error 1

10

Tayyaba I’m super happy to help, but you need to slow down, read the documentation and properly read the code other people post for you.

You init the SDK inside your main() function as I showed above, not outside of it.

11

Sorry, yeah.

It has been long since I am trying to have this running, sorry :slight_smile:

12

Hi, Sorry again. But this is the initial part of my code

#include <stdio.h>
#include “pico/stdlib.h”
#include “hardware/pio.h”
#include “hardware/clocks.h”

#include “clock_generator.pio.h”
#include “data_sender.pio.h”
#include “audio_pdm.h”

const uint CLOCK_PIN = 0;
const uint DATA_PIN = 1;
const uint INTERRUPT_PIN = 2;
const uint LED_PIN = 25;

PIO pio = pio0;
uint sm_clock, sm_data;

volatile bool send_data = false;
size_t data_index = 0;
const unsigned char* pdm_data = audio_pdm;
size_t pdm_data_size = sizeof(audio_pdm) / sizeof(audio_pdm[0]);

void clockChangeISR(uint gpio, uint32_t events) {
bool pinState = gpio_get(gpio);
send_data = pinState;

pio_sm_set_enabled(pio, sm_clock, pinState);
pio_sm_set_enabled(pio, sm_data, pinState);
gpio_put(LED_PIN, pinState);

}

int main() {
stdio_init_all();

And this is my platform.ini file

[env:pico-dap]

platform = wizio-pico

board = pico-dap

framework = baremetal

;monitor_port = SELECT SERIAL PORT

;monitor_speed = 115200

;lib_deps =

monitor_port = COM34

monitor_speed = 115200

build_flags = -D PICO_CYW43_ARCH_POLL ; select wifi driver mode

I do not see serial monitor enabling any port to see data there. Can you see it now?

13

Firstly, the code you have posted is either incomplete, badly formatted, or won’t compile. You need to post what you are working with - and format it so people can read it.

Secondly, none of the code I can read is sending anything to the serial ports. What is it you expect to monitor?

Thirdly, you need to get a minimal working example to solve your problem. You have a load of code in there that may - or may not affect affect what is happening, but 99% of it is unrelated to solving your serial port issue. All your man.cpp should contain is this:

#include <stdio.h>
#include "pico/stdlib.h"

int main() {
  stdio_init_all();

  while(1){
    sleep_ms(1000);
    printf("I'm alive!");
  }

}

Fourth, you changed the platformio.ini I originally posted without the basics working and removed the USB build flags, which is what I assume you want.

Lastly, friendly advice. Don’t even think of touching the Pico’s PIO interfaces until you have an understanding of how this all works. Get your basics working properly and then build on that. I would suggest you start a new thread on the community for future help.

14

I have to work with PIO, that is the main point and I am struggling. Mainly because of switching between softwares. I started with standard PICO SDK, everything was fine and then cmake stopped working saying some configuration setting is bad and I had not changed anything.
I switched to platformIO and I could work basically and my functionality was working with some irregularities and to solve that I had to include PICO SDK functions so I found your post, tried that and now sort of again starting from the bottom, for the third time.

15

You still need to master the basics before you start hacking PIO. Start with “simple”, and step-by-step build on your knowledge and code.

1 Like
16

Yes, I am trying. Thank You :slight_smile:

17

a year ago it should have looked like this ( unfortunately not finished )

FRAMEWORKS

  • Raspberry PI RP2040 Pico SDK CMAKE ( as is )
  • Raspberry PI RP2040 User Friendly ( WizIO edition )
  • Raspberry PI RP2040 Pico microPython
  • Raspberry PI RP2040 Pico Arduino ( TODO )
  • Raspberry PI 3,4,5 C/C++ Executable
  • Raspberry PI 3,4,5 Python Executable
  • Raspberry PI 3,4,5 Arduino Executable ( TODO )
18

Great to hear from you!
I appreciate you felt let down after all the work you put in to the framework, but if you’d like to reconsider, I’d be glad to be a part and be an active contributor, and have been merging in bug fixes to my fork as I find them.

One area I have been looking at is pulling in the libraries and ArduinoCore-API from the earlephilhower core into a standalone lib as part of the framework. This core seems to have a great many libraries implemented with a lot of eye balls on it and means we could share the Arduino library maintenance and focus of Arduino API compatibility with the SDK, as well as update it to 1.5

For example, for some reason I couldn’t get UART to play nicely across multiple cores so had to re-implement that from scratch.

My goal currently is to get the framework up to SDK1.5 with normal Pico conventions, compile out any basic Arduino calls like Serial.print/ln, byte, millis etc which seems to cover 75% of libraries I’ve looked at, and then just include an Arduino.h as an API compatibility layer.

I also need to find a way to auto generate a library.json for any included library to avoid PIO needing lib_compat_mode = off

I would also be awesome if you could explain how you re-package the Pico SDK. Compile times are super fast, but I’ve still not understood how it all comes together.

19

Just as an additional addendum, in case anyone is wondering on the pros & cons of the arduino-pico core vs baremetal…

In a nutshell, with the arduino-pico core you have no choice but to code as if you are writing for Arduino.

Eg. you must #include <Arduino.h>, you have limited access to the Pico SDK and you have no real access to standard C++ interfaces like printf() or cout (you must use Serial.print() etc). You also won’t have access to the C++ STL interfaces either like say std::shared_ptr.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was a design choice to allow existing Arduino users simple access to the Pico in a compatible way that “just works”.

I would suggest if you are migrating from the Arduino IDE, or just want full compatibility with existing Arduino libraries and don’t need the full Pico SDK with multi-core or a full C++ environment, then go with arduino-core.

If the RP2040 is your chosen MCU and you want full C++ SDK goodness then go with baremetal. This isn’t as daunting as it sounds as Raspberry Pi has a ton of example code on working with everything from SPI and I2C to DMA up on their Github repo: GitHub - raspberrypi/pico-examples

The wizio-pico framework does have some Arduino support in it, but I’ve not found it worked very well with multiple cores and other stuff. It’s also currently only SDK v1.4

I am currently working on an “Arduino API compatibility layer” that just offers compatible interfaces via the Pico SDK so that things like Adafruit libraries are easily ported over but still offers baremetal access to the SDK. Will update here if this seems worthwhile.

1 Like
21

Can anyone help me out. I am trying to sync my 2 state machines with a clock signal so when clock is ON, State Machine one sends a signal and when it´s OFF, the other one sends a signal. Signal here is PDM bits. The problem I think I understand is that every instruction is carried out for one complete clock cycle, not half of it as per my requirement and I cannot say out pins, 0.5 or something per say. It has to be between 1 and 32.
So I am unable to turn the state machine off mid-way. We cannot use two wait instructions in one pio file as well otherwise that would have done the job. If I am approaching the problem wrong then please correct me.
Thanks