Mynewt relies on two command line utilities (newt and newtmgr), both of which are described elsewhere in this learning guide, as well as the presence of an ARM cross-compiling toolchain (arm-none-eabi-gcc, etc.).

Both of these need to be installed and available on your system to work with Mynewt projects.

Install newt and newtmgr Binaries

Binary versions of the command-line tools are available from Apache.

The full setup guide is available here: https://mynewt.apache.org/latest/newt/install/newt_linux.html

In summary, copy following commands and paste it (one line each time) into your terminal to add newt's public key and deb package to your apt repository for installation.

$ wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuulLabs-OSS/debian-mynewt/master/mynewt.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mynewt.list <<EOF
deb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuulLabs-OSS/debian-mynewt/master latest main
EOF
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install newt
$ sudo apt-get install newtmgr

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$ wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuulLabs-OSS/debian-mynewt/master/mynewt.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mynewt.list <<EOF
deb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JuulLabs-OSS/debian-mynewt/master latest main
EOF
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install newt
$ sudo apt-get install newtmgr

Check your installation with version command

$ newt version
Apache Newt version: 1.5.0
$ newtmgr version
Apache Newtmgr 1.5.0

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$ newt version
Apache Newt version: 1.5.0
$ newtmgr version
Apache Newtmgr 1.5.0

Install an ARM Cross-Compiling Toolchain

In order to build and debug ARM binaries, you will also need to install a cross-compiling toolchain targeting the ARM architecture.

Thankfully, pre-built binaries are available, as described in the setup guide below:

$ sudo apt-get remove binutils-arm-none-eabi gcc-arm-none-eabi 
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update 
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi

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$ sudo apt-get remove binutils-arm-none-eabi gcc-arm-none-eabi 
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa
$ sudo apt-get update 
$ sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi

Optional: Install the OpenOCD Debugger (Segger J-Link)

If you wish to debug or flash your projects with a Segger J-Link, you will also need to install the OpenOCD debug tool via the following steps:

$ sudo apt-get install openocd

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$ sudo apt-get install openocd

Once it is installed, you can check and make sure you have at least v 0.10.0 which support nRF52 chip

$openocd -v
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.10.0
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html

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$openocd -v
Open On-Chip Debugger 0.10.0
Licensed under GNU GPL v2
For bug reports, read
http://openocd.org/doc/doxygen/bugs.html

If you see any of these error messages:

• openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libhidapi-hidraw.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

• openocd: error while loading shared libraries: libusb-1.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

run the following command to install the libraries:

$ sudo apt-get install libhidapi-dev:i386

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$ sudo apt-get install libhidapi-dev:i386

Optional: Install Segger J-Link Drivers

If you wish to use the newt load or newt debug commands and a Segger J-Link, you will need to install the Segger J-Link drivers as well.

On Ubuntu systems, you will need to go to the Segger J-Link Downloads page and download an appropriate binary package:

• For 32-bit systems download:
  J-Link Software and Documentation pack for Linux, DEB Installer, 32-bit
• For 64-bit systems download: 
  J-Link Software and Documentation pack for Linux, DEB Installer, 64-bit

Once you have the file on your system, install the package via dpkg as follows (varying the file for the version of architecture you are using):

$ sudo dpkg -i JLink_Linux_V618a_x86_64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package jlink.
(Reading database ... 175450 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack JLink_Linux_V618a_x86_64.deb ...
Removing /opt/SEGGER/JLink ...
/opt/SEGGER/JLink not found (OK)
Unpacking jlink (6.18.1) ...
Setting up jlink (6.18.1) ...

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$ sudo dpkg -i JLink_Linux_V618a_x86_64.deb
Selecting previously unselected package jlink.
(Reading database ... 175450 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack JLink_Linux_V618a_x86_64.deb ...
Removing /opt/SEGGER/JLink ...
/opt/SEGGER/JLink not found (OK)
Unpacking jlink (6.18.1) ...
Setting up jlink (6.18.1) ...

Optional: Install minicom

Much of the interaction with your Mynewt device will happen over the serial port, including working with Shell-based commands on your device.

A relatively easy to use command line application to work with serial port connections is minicom, which is used throughout this learning guide. It can be installed from the command-line with the following command:

$ sudo apt-get install minicom

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$ sudo apt-get install minicom

You can establish a serial connection via minicom with the following command (adjusting the /dev/tty device name as appropriate):

$ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0

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$ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0