Re: STM32 development on FreeBSD?

On Wed, Aug 5, 2026 at 10:15 AM A FreeBSD User <freebsd@walstatt-de.de> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if FreeBSD (I'm with 15-STABLE and CURRENT) could provide a suitable STM32
> development platform?
> I'am a novice in that matter! I have some minor (bad) experience with ESP-IDF/Espressif and
> xtensa-esp-elf/riscv32-esp-elf (extremely fragile) toolchain and since I'm not bound to the
> MCU, I think I should try STM32 (the aim is a small appliance targetting flight controllers,
> so STM32 might be the better choice).
>
> I found some remarks on the net, at least
>
> https://gist.github.com/jj1bdx/0eeb447882ccf695b7d9 (last active 4 years ago) favoring
> devel/gcc-arm-embedded (gcc14, but the port is broken on CURRENT),
>
> I tried avoiding older (i.e. pre 2020) hits on google search. I also found hints using
>
> devel/arm-eabi-gcc, devel/arm-eabi-newlib (would like to have picolibc instead, but no ports
> so far).
>
> Major question: is someone developing for STM32 MCUs on FreeRTOS or equivalent and willing
> toshare with a beginner some hints and tricks how to setup the environment? I'd prefere a
> simple Makefile driven environemnt, I made bad experiences as a starter with the Python hell
> and cmake/ninja in ESP-IDF from Espressif which is a moving target.
>
> On the other hand, since LLVM is the standard compiler in FreeBSD, I'm willing to focus on
> that compiler suite as well but didn't find any STM32 related hints in the ports tree.
>
> For some existing tiny projects of mine I'd like to use FreeRTOS, but for some flight
> controller experiments I'd like to compile betaflight or Ardupilot (on FreeBSD). This info
> just for the record.
>
> I'd like to stay with FreeBSD as a main development and workstation platform, so in the first
> approach I try to avoid any Linux.
>
> Thank you very much and thanks for the patience, even if it might hurt. And I see forward to
> read from you.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> oh
>
>
> --
>
> A FreeBSD user

I am using FreeBSD for Apache NuttX RTOS development, try this one
out, supports many different architectures, and is kind of Unix for
MCU :-)

https://nuttx.apache.org/

List of supported platforms and chips and their peripherals is here:

https://nuttx.apache.org/docs/latest/platforms/index.html

gcc-arm-embedded compiler is in the ports. If you want to use esp32*
chips you can use one from esp-idf I patched it so Linux binaries are
installed and works on FreeBSD, plus Espressif has dedicated team for
NuttX development (yes esp-idf is a moving target but taken care of by
their team here). You can even work with AVR :-)

Have fun :-)
Tomek

--
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info