Installing prc-tools on an RPM-based system

At present, prebuilt prc-tools RPMs are available for x86 Linux only. We build binary RPMs on architectures to which we have access. If you would like to contribute a build on another architecture, please contact us.

To install a prc-tools RPM, download the appropriate version and architecture from the downloads page and install it using your favourite package management tool, or by logging on as root and typing

# rpm -Uvh prc-tools-version.arch.rpm

Most of the other components used in conjunction with prc-tools are also available as RPMs:

These other RPMs are, of course, installed similarly via a package management tool, such as the rpm command.

The tools RPMs (but not the SDK ones) are listed in the Development/Palm OS group at rpmfind (but not at all mirrors).

Post-installation setup

Neither prc-tools nor GCC has any built-in knowledge of what Palm OS SDKs and other header files and libraries (collectively, development material) you happen to have installed. You can use palmdev-prep to provide such knowledge: after running it, m68k-palmos-gcc will be able to find Palm OS-related headers and libraries automatically, i.e., without needing any extra -I and -L options, and will have a new -palmosN option for selecting which SDK to use.

You should rerun palmdev-prep whenever you upgrade prc-tools or install or remove a Palm OS SDK or other development material. You should also rerun it using its -d SDK option when you want to change which SDK is to be used by default, i.e., in the absence of any -palmosN options.

Because it creates configuration files in system directories, this too needs to be done while you are logged on as root:

# palmdev-prep

Palmdev-prep will search /opt/palmdev for SDKs and other development material and report on what it finds. This report reflects the SDKs that will be accessible via a -palmosN option to GCC, so if it fails to list some SDK that you think you have installed, you'll have to figure out why prc-tools has not been able to detect it. In general, prc-tools prefers and expects the directory structure of a Palm OS SDK to look like

/opt/palmdev/sdk-N/include
Header files, arranged in arbitrary directories under include
/opt/palmdev/sdk-N/lib/m68k-palmos-coff
Static (link-time) libraries for m68k-palmos
For compatibility with some of the ways in which SDKs have been packaged, palmdev-prep will also correctly detect an SDK when header files are under Incs instead of include and/or libraries are under GCC Libraries instead of lib.

In the past, /usr/local/palmdev was the canonical place to put SDKs. If you still have SDKs installed there, you can either move them or tell palmdev-prep to look there as well each time you run it:

# palmdev-prep /usr/local/palmdev


Part of the installation guide of the prc-tools web pages