Using Qt Creator

What is the QT Creator

The Qt Creator is a cross-platform IDE to develop and debug Qt Applications. It can be used to directly deploy and debug applications on a SECO device.

Embedded Software Development Tools & Cross Platform IDE | Qt Creator

Install Linux

If you are not already working on a linux system, you have to set up such a system. You could do this via Virtual Box or via WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) for example. The installation is described in the following links:

Ubuntu and Virtual Box

WSL

By default, the installed Linux distribution in wsl will be Ubuntu. To list all available distributions you can use the command wsl --list --online or wsl -l -o. To install additional Linux distributions after the initial installation the command wsl --install -d <Distribution Name> is used. You can switch between installed distributions with wsl --setdefault <Distribution Name>.

This document was written using Ubuntu 24.04.

When using wsl commands inside a Linux/bash instead of a powershell/command prompt use wsl.exe instead of wsl.

You may also install build-essentials for providing gcc and make.

$ sudo apt install build-essential

Be sure that ssh is installed. Otherwise install it:

$ sudo apt install ssh

Install Qt Creator

Use following command to install Qt Creator:

$ sudo apt install qtcreator

Get and source the Yocto SDK

To build and debug qt applications on seco devices you have to install the appropriate SDK on your linux system. The SDK is available for download with every release, see Kirkstone
To install the SDK use following command:

$ sh <SDK location>/seconorth-wayland-glibc-x86_64-seconorth-image-cortexa9t2hf-neon-seco-mx6-toolchain-kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c.sh

The installer will ask you if you want to install the SDK into a subfolder in /opt. Supposed this is what you want press the y key. Example output:

SECO Northern Europe Wayland Distro SDK installer version kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c
====================================================================================
Enter target directory for SDK (default: /opt/seconorth-wayland/kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c):
The directory "/opt/seconorth-wayland/kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c" already contains a SDK for this architecture.
If you continue, existing files will be overwritten! Proceed [y/N]?

After installing you have to source the SDK envirement like in the following example:

$ source /opt/seconorth-wayland/kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c/environment-setup-cortexa9t2hf-neon-seconorth-linux-gnueabi
$ make

For all the following steps the SDK environment has to be sourced.

Start Qt Creator

After the installation of the qt creator, a startup script that is part of the SDK can be used to start the qtcreator development session.

$ sh /opt/seconorth-wayland/kirkstone-21.1-14-g09e947c/start-qtcreator.sh

When started in this way, only the IP address should need to be set .

Check Qt Creator settings

Open Edit → Preferences

Qt Creator Preferences

The Kits tab should lock similar to following screenshot:

Get the ip address of your device and add the ip address to the Host name in the Devices tab. It is also important to set the checkmark Source /etc/profile and $HOME/.profile.

If you want to use the debugger open the Debugger tab. In the GDB section add the following into the Additional Startup Commands box:

handle SIGILL nostop

6. New Qt Creator project

Follow the following pictures to create a new Qt project.

Qt Quick for an qml based project

Qt Creator project naming

Select the desired local language and get the corresponding translation file.

Do not setup any version control system as shown in Qt Creator project version control setup image.

7. Run and Debug

To run your application on the device press the green arrow. Be sure target.path is /tmp/ in the .pro file.

If you use the debugger you may receive an error message. Add following lines to Projects → Run → Environment:

XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/1000
WAYLAND_DISPLAY=/run/wayland-0
QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland

For more information about Qt Creator debugging consult the debugging part of the reference manual

If you want to stop the SECO demo application, select Projects → Build & Run → Run → Add Deploy Step and select Run custom remote command as shown in the image above.

Add command as shown as in the image above:

systemctl stop seco-show-demo

Qt Creator custom remote command to terminate demo app if running