Installing the Raspberry Pi Pico C SDK and picotool, on a Raspberry Pi

This post explains how to install the Pico C SDK and how to build and install picotool on a Raspberry Pi.

Dependencies

Install the dependencies required by both the SDK and picotool:

sudo apt -y install build-essential pkg-config libusb-1.0-0-dev cmake

Get the SDK

mkdir -p ~/builds
cd ~/builds
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk
cd pico-sdk
git submodule update --init
export PICO_SDK_PATH=~/builds/pico-sdk

Get picotool

mkdir -p ~/builds
cd ~/builds
git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/picotool
cd picotool

Build picotool

export PICO_SDK_PATH=~/builds/pico-sdk
cmake .
make -j 4

Install picotool

sudo make install

To be able to run picotool without needing sudo:

sudo cp udev/99-picotool.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger

Running picotool

picotool info -a

If you have a Pico in BOOTSEL mode, you should see something like - obviously depending on what you have installed, you may seen something different on your pi.

Program Information
 name:            MicroPython
 version:         v1.20.0-448-g5e5059373
 features:        thread support
                  USB REPL
 frozen modules:  aioble/security, aioble/l2cap, aioble/client, aioble/central, aioble/server,
                  aioble/peripheral, aioble/device, aioble/core, aioble, webrepl_setup, webrepl,
                  ntptime, mip, urequests, neopixel, dht, ds18x20, onewire, uasyncio, asyncio/stream,
                  asyncio/lock, asyncio/funcs, asyncio/event, asyncio/core, asyncio, _boot, _boot_fat,
                  rp2, main
 binary start:    0x10000000
 binary end:      0x100c431c
 embedded drive:  0x1012c000-0x10200000 (848K): MicroPython

Fixed Pin Information
 none

Build Information
 sdk version:       1.5.1
 pico_board:        pico_w
 boot2_name:        boot2_w25q080
 build date:        Sep  5 2023
 build attributes:  MinSizeRel

Device Information
 flash size:   2048K
 ROM version:  3

You can also use picotool to inspect a firmware file on your Pi:

picotool ~/builds/MicroPython/ports/rp2/build-RPI_PICO_W/firmware.uf2

Shows:

File /home/pi/builds/MicroPython/ports/rp2/build-RPI_PICO_W/firmware.uf2:

Program Information
 name:            MicroPython
 version:         v1.20.0-448-g5e5059373
 features:        thread support
                  USB REPL
 frozen modules:  aioble/security, aioble/l2cap, aioble/client, aioble/central, aioble/server,
                  aioble/peripheral, aioble/device, aioble/core, aioble, webrepl_setup, webrepl,
                  ntptime, mip, urequests, neopixel, dht, ds18x20, onewire, uasyncio, asyncio/stream,
                  asyncio/lock, asyncio/funcs, asyncio/event, asyncio/core, asyncio, _boot, _boot_fat,
                  rp2, main
 binary start:    0x10000000
 binary end:      0x100c431c
 embedded drive:  0x1012c000-0x10200000 (848K): MicroPython

Fixed Pin Information
 none

Build Information
 sdk version:       1.5.1
 pico_board:        pico_w
 boot2_name:        boot2_w25q080
 build date:        Sep  5 2023
 build attributes:  MinSizeRel