SimpleScalar Installation

-- ToanMai - 2011-03-05

The following text shows how to install SimpleScalar on x86_64 Linux System.

It works on our system:

• OS: CentOS 5.4
• CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5530 @2.4Ghz

Before installing

You need the following files:

• simplesim-3v0d.tgz
• simpletools-2v0.tgz
• gcc-2.7.2.3.ss.tar.gz
• simpleutils-990811.tar.gz

The following packages should also be already installed on your systems:

• flex
• "Development Tools" (on CentOS, or build-essential on Debian systems).

Installation

Assume that we need to install SimpleScalar in our home directory /home/me.

• Create a directory named 'simplescalar' there:
  • $ cd /home/me
  • $ mkdir simplescalar
• Download and put all the above necessary files to /home/me/simplescalar
• Extracts those files:
  • $ tar -xzf simplesim-3v0d.tgz
  • $ tar -xzf simpletools-2v0.tgz
  • $ tar -xzf gcc-2.7.2.3.ss.tar.gz
  • $ tar -xzf simpleutils-990811.tar.gz
• The following files/directories should now can be seen in your folder:
  • f2c-1994.09.27
  • gcc-2.6.3 (can be deleted since we do not use it)
  • gcc-2.7.2.3
  • glibc-1.09
  • simplesim-3.0
  • simpleutils-990811
  • ssbig-na-sstrix
  • sslittle-na-sstrix
  • Readme.gcc-2.7.2.3
• For the ease of the next steps, we should export some variables as follows:
  • $ export HOME=i686-pc-linux
  • $ export TARGET=sslittle-na-sstrix
  • $ export IDIR=/home/me/simplescalar

Building GNU Binary Utilities

• $ cd $IDIR/simpleutils-990811
• $ ./configure --host=$HOST --target=$TARGET --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --prefix=$IDIR
  • You may encounter the error: './configure: line 2274: flex: command not found'.
    
    • Just install 'Flex' on your system and make it visible to the PATH variable and run ./configure again.
• $ make
  • You may encounter the error: 'ldlex.l:589: error: `yy_current_buffer' undeclared (first use in this function)'.
    • In the file ldlex.l, at line 588, replace yy_current_buffer with YY_CURRENT_BUFFER. Then run make again.
• $ make install

Building The Simulators

• $ cd $IDIR/simplesim-3.0
• $ make config-pisa
• $ make

Building the GCC Cross-compiler for SimpleScalar

This is a pretty complicated part because several errors would probably occurs.

• $ cd $IDIR/gcc-2.7.2.3/
• $ ./configure --host=$HOST --target=$TARGET --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --prefix=$IDIR
• To avoid some errors related to unnecessary 32-bit stuffs (like stubs-32.h, etc), we should
  • $ export CFLAGS='-m64'
• Also, we should append '-I/usr/include' to the end of line 130 of the Makefile.
• $ make LANGUAGES='c c++' CFLAG='-O3' CC='gcc'. We have encountered the following errors at this step:
  • insn-output.c:675:10: missing terminating " character...
    • To solve: append the back slash '\' to the end of lines 675, 750 and 823 of the file insn-output.c. Run 'make LANGUAGES....' again
  • The next error is about the 'invalid lvalue in increment' in the file decl.c.
    • To solve: open the file obstack.h, at line 345
      • replace *((void *)__o->next_free)++=((void )datum); * with
      • *((void *)__o->next_free++)=((void *)datum); * Run 'make LANGUAGES...' again
• $ make LANGUAGES='c c++' CFLAG='-O3' CC='gcc' install

Simple Scalar has now been installed. We should add the paths to it's tools, utils and compilers to $PATH.

• $ export PATH=$PATH:$IDIR/bin:$IDIR/simplesim-3.0:$IDIR

Test

• Create a new hello.c file:
  • #include <stdio.h>
    
    int main (void) {
    printf ("Hello \n");
    return 0;
    }
• Compile it with the Cross-compile of Simple Scalar:
  • $ sslittle-na-sstrix-gcc –o hello hello.c
• Simulate the program with sim-safe:
  • $ sim-safe
  • The simulation results are printed to the screen:

The installation is successful!

References

• http://simplescalar.com/docs/install_guide_v2.txt

• http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~cheng/211/Projects/SimpleScalar/simplescalar-linux-install.txt

• and some other forums for fixing errors