Non-nix Setup

If you use nix as explained in the getting started instructions, then you should not need to manually install the Raspberry Pi Pico SDK, C library and math library compiled for bare metal Cortex ARM, or the GNU Arm Embedded Toolchain for cross-compilation. To install these manually and not rely on nix to provide these dependencies, follow these instructions.

Install Raspberry Pi Pico SDK

Clone the raspberrypi/pico-sdk repository (and its submodules) and set the PICO_SDK_PATH environment variable:

$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk.git
$ cd pico-sdk
$ git submodule update --init
$ export PICO_SDK_PATH=`pwd`

For convenience, set PICO_SDK_PATH in your ~/.profile file so that the environment variable is available to any bash terminal. After completing the steps above, this can be done as follows:

$ echo "export PICO_SDK_PATH=$PICO_SDK_PATH" >> ~/.profile

Caution: Depending on what operating system and terminal you use, and how it is configured, you may need to find some other way to set this environment variable.

Install picotool

To build and install picotool from source, run the following commands:

$ git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/picotool.git
$ cd picotool
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
$ make
$ sudo make install

Install CMake, Standard C Library, ARM cross compiler

For reference, see the GNU ARM installation instructions. For installation instructions specific to Ubuntu and macOS, read on.

On Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install cmake make gcc gcc-arm-none-eabi libnewlib-arm-none-eabi

On macOS

$ brew install cmake make gcc arm-none-eabi-gcc
$ brew tap ArmMbed/homebrew-formulae

NOTE: If you are running on an Apple M1-based Mac you will need to install Rosetta 2 as the Arm compiler is still only compiled for x86 processors and does not have an Arm native version.

$ /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license

Perform a Smoke Test

To make sure your installation has worked, follow the instructions here.