CCS Install Guide (Version 5.4)

This guide provides instructions for installing TI’s Code Composer Studio (CCS) on your own machine. Specific instructions are provided for configuring a CCS install to support the labs in ECE2049 and ECE3849.

Note: These instructions are specific to Code Composer Studio version 5.4, which is the version of CCS installed in the ECE labs.

Before you start: System requirements

Windows

CCS should work out-of-the-box on most versions of Windows. We have tested it successfully with our hardware on Windows 7, 8, 10, and Server 2008. You will need at least 10GB of free disk space to complete the installation.

If you have Windows, you can skip directly to Downloading CCS.

Linux

Installing CCS on Linux is also possible, though slightly more involved. TI provides install instructions for CCS on Linux here, which are specific to Ubuntu Linux. We recommend that you use Ubuntu version 14.04, which is the latest version for which TI provides instructions. It is possible to run CCS on other Linux distributions, though the installation process may be tricky.

Before installing CCS, install all of the package dependencies recommended in the TI instructions before running the installer. If you are missing dependencies, the installer may fail to run with little or no indication of why it failed.

If you don’t use Ubuntu 14.04 or just don’t want to install CCS directly, a good option is to use the CCS Virtual Machine instead.

Mac OS X

Unfortunately, TI does not provide a version of CCS for Mac OS.

If you want to run CCS on your computer, your best option is to install a virtual machine on your computer, which is a method for running another operating system as a program on your mac. See the instructions for the for details CCS Virtual Machine.

Downloading CCS

You can download CCS v5.4 from TI’s website here:

Important: When downloading, make sure you select version 5.4! Using another version will cause issues when you try to build your code in the labs.

Download either the web-based installer or the full installation package (which is larger). In order to download the file, you will need to make an account on TI’s website and fill in some information–when requested, you can write “Education” as your intended use for the product.

If you have issues obtaining a download link from TI, please ask the course staff for help.

Installing CCS

Running the installer

Run the installer and select an install location for CCS on your computer when prompted. We recommend that you install CCS on your local hard drive–do NOT try to install it on a flash drive, or it will be very slow.

Toolchain support

After a few clicks, you will be prompted to select which types of TI you want to use with your CCS install. Select the options highlighted in red in the figure below to add support for the MSP430, which installs the necessary compilers and libraries (also called toolchains).

(Optional) If you intend to take ECE3849: Real-time Embedded Systems in the future, you may also want to select the options highlighted in blue so that your CCS install also supports the ARM development boards used in that course.

Other components

Click Next to see a list of some additional support libraries. Select the options shown in the figure below; this adds some optional libraries that we use in our labs, like a generalized library for drawing graphics to display devices.

(Optional) If you want to install the support libraries for ECE3849, click here.

Click Next again to see a list of emulators, which include the drivers to program attach a debugger to a target microcontroller. The default options for these settings should be fine, but make sure the options in the figure below are selected:

Click Next again and then start the install. The installation procedure will take a while, so feel free to go outside or take a nap while it runs.

Running CCS for the first time

When CCS first starts, it will display a prompt asking you to select a license. Select the MSP430 Code-size limited license as shown below.

This freely-available license grants full access to the MSP430 toolchain for all devices with 16KB of memory or less. Since our development board has 16KB of memory, the limit does not impact us in any way.

Once you select your license, click Finish and you should be presented with the full CCS window.

Note: If you take ECE3849 in a later term, you will need to change the license to the Free license at that time. You can do this from the Help menu.

Testing your CCS install

The best way to test your CCS install is to load a project, build it, and to load it onto your development board. Please refer to the Lab 0 assignment for instructions on how to do this; in particular, you should follow the instructions for the following steps:

1. Build and load the “blink” project: This will confirm that you have the correct compiler installed and can successfully attach a debugger to the development board.

2. Build and load the Lab 0 template (demo) project This will make sure that you have all of the required libraries installed for use in our labs.

If you can successfully build and load the above projects, you should be done!

Getting help

If you have issues with this install procedure, feel free to contact the course staff or come to office hours or lab for help.

For CCS-specific errors, it is also useful to search online for information about the error. CCS has a very good online community, so it’s often possible to find solutions to certain configuration issues online.

Frequently Asked Questions

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