This tutorial assumes that your system is Ubuntu Linux. This should still be useful to other Linux distributions.

1. User and device privilege

1.1. To give user the privilege:

• The "lazy" method is:
  • sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
  • Log out of your computer and log in again.
• Another more comprehensive method is:
  • Edit the group-definition-file by sudo nano /etc/group
  • Using your cursor, go to a line that starts with dialout, then add your username at the end, after the colon, for example, since my username is chung, the line will be dialout:x:20:chung
  • Save the edited file, and force the shell to reset by su - $USER

1.2. To give the device access rights:

• Create a new udev rule by sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/99-usb-stlink.rules
• Append to the file SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0483", ATTR{idProduct}=="3748", MODE="0666". This step may vary slightly due to some differences in the idVendor, idProduct fields. To check yours, follow excellent instructions in this link.\
• Save the udev rule file and force the shell to reset udev rules by sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
• Unplug and replug your device.

2. Install dependencies

sudo apt-get install \
    python-serial openocd \    
    flex bison libncurses5-dev autoconf texinfo \
    libftdi-dev libtool zlib1g-dev -y

3. Remove existing versions of toolchain

sudo apt-get remove \
    gcc-arm-none-eabi gdb-arm-none-eabi \
    binutils-arm-none-eabi gcc-arm-embedded

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:team-gcc-arm-embedded/ppa

4. Install toolchain version 5.2

Put the following block of code into a file, e.g toolchain_install.bash, and install by ./toolchain_install.bash

pushd .
cd  ~
wget https://launchpad.net/gcc-arm-embedded/5.0/5-2016-q2-update/+download/gcc-arm-none-eabi-5_4-2016q2-20160622-linux.tar.bz2
tar -jxf gcc-arm-none-eabi-5_4-2016q2-20160622-linux.tar.bz2
exportline="export PATH=$HOME/gcc-arm-none-eabi-5_4-2016q2/bin:\$PATH"
if grep -Fxq "$exportline" ~/.bash_profile;
    then echo nothing to do ;
    else echo $exportline >> ~/.profile;
fi
popd

5. Install 32bit support libraries

(This step might not be necessary if your computer is already a 32bit system)

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386 libstdc++5:i386 libstdc++6:i386
sudo apt-get install gcc-4.6-base:i386

6. Check installation success

Restart the computer.

Run the command

arm-none-eabi-gcc --version

The output should be something similar to this

arm-none-eabi-gcc (GNU Tools for ARM Embedded Processors) 5.4.1 20160609 (release) [ARM/embedded-5-branch revision 237715]
Copyright (C) 2015 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

7. Reference

This section is adapted from original PX4 developers'guide.