Connecting Generic Linux Devices

You can connect generic Linux devices to the development PC to build, run, debug, and analyze applications on them from Qt Creator.

If you have the tool chain for building applications for generic Linux devices (with no MADDE support) installed on the development PC, you can add it to Qt Creator.

To be able to run and debug applications on generic Linux devices, you must create device configurations and select them in the Qt Creator run settings.

You use a wizard to create the connections. You can edit the settings later in Tools > Options... > Linux Devices > Device Configurations.

You can protect the connections between Qt Creator and a device by using either a password or an SSH key. If you do not have an SSH key, you can create it in Qt Creator. For more information, see Generating SSH Keys.

To configure connections between Qt Creator and generic Linux devices:

1. Make sure that your device can be reached via an IP address.
2. Select Tools > Options... > Qt4 > Add to add the Qt version for the generic Linux.
3. Select Tools > Options... > Tool Chains > Add to add the tool chain for building the applications.
4. To deploy applications and run them remotely on devices, specify parameters for accessing the devices:
   1. Select Tools > Options... > Linux Devices > Device Configurations > Add > Generic Linux Device.

      

   2. In the The name to identify this configuration field, enter a name for the connection.
   3. In the The device's host name or IP address field, enter the host name or IP address of the device.
   4. In the The user name to log into the device field, enter the user name to log into the device and run the application as.
   5. In the The authentication type field, select whether to use Password or Key authentication, and enter the user's password or the file that contains the user's private key.
   6. Click Next to create the connection.
5. To specify build settings:
   1. Open a project for an application you want to develop for the device.
   2. Select Projects > Desktop > Build.
   3. Select the Qt version and tool chain for the generic Linux device.
6. To specify run settings:
   1. Select Run > Add > Build Tarball and Deploy to Linux Host to add a new deploy configuration.

      

   2. In the Device configuration field, select the device connection.

   When you run the project, Qt Creator creates an installation package in the build directory. The name of the directory is displayed in the Create tarball step.

   The Deploy tarball via SFTP upload using device step specifies that Qt Creator uploads the tarball to the device and extracts it. You can add custom deploy steps and remove the default step if it is incompatible with your steps. To only create a tarball and not copy the files to the device, remove all deploy steps.