Using PicoDebug programmer on Apple Silicon - workaround

[WayneKeenan]

Hi,

I thought this might help other Apple Silicon users.

The bundled openocd is an Intel binary and trying to get libusb & libhid installed in an arch x86_64 homebrew environment is just a disaster...

To get this to work here's what I did, whilst the IDE is not running:

1. Install Apple silicon hombrew & openocd (I used my already existing setup so don't have detail 'replay instructions')

2. Edit: rp2040/hardware/rp2040/3.6.0/boards.txt

Comment out this line, the flags cause linking with Serial to fail.

#rpipicow.menu.uploadmethod.picodebug.build.picodebugflags=-UUSE_TINYUSB -DNO_USB -DDISABLE_USB_SERIAL -I{runtime.platform.path}/tools/libpico

Add this below:

rpipicow.menu.uploadmethod.picodebug.build.picodebugflags=-DENABLE_PICOTOOL_USB

3. Edit: rp2040/hardware/rp2040/3.6.0/platform.txt

Point the Arduino programming config to the Apple silicon Homebrew and custom openocd config file (adjust the -f path accordingly):

Comment out this line:

tools.picodebug.upload.pattern="{cmd}/bin/openocd" -f "board/pico-debug.cfg" -s "{cmd}/share/openocd/scripts" -c "program {{build.path}/{build.project_name}.elf} verify reset exit"

Add this below:

tools.picodebug.upload.pattern="/opt/homebrew/bin/openocd" -s /opt/homebrew/share/openocd/scripts -f /Users/wayne/projects/pico/cfg/openocd_rp2040.cfg -c "tcl_port disabled" -c "gdb_port disabled" -c "tcl_port disabled"  -c "program {{build.path}/{build.project_name}.elf}" -c reset -c shutdown

4. Unzip and put the attached openocd somewhere safe and make sure the path in step 3 points to it.

The openocd_rp2040.cfg comes from a pico-sdk & pico debug setup about 6 months ago, it might be modified, I can't recall, but this works for me here in Arduino and in Clion.

Hope it helps.

openocd_rp2040.cfg.zip

[earlephilhower]

Thanks for the detailed steps. I'll pin this as a discussion so it'll be easier to find.

[ruswerner]

@WayneKeenan Would you mind sharing your CLion setup for using arduino-pico? I've hacked together some shoddy cmake files that enable code completion, but I've just added some custom targets that shell out to arduino-cli to compile and upload. I'd also like to get openocd debugging working, but haven't gotten that far yet. Any help, even if it's a zip of a project folder that has all the config in it, would be extremely helpful. I'm on a M1 mac using CLion, targetting pico & pico w. Cheers mate.

[WayneKeenan]

@ruswerner I'm using the Pico SDK directly in CLion.