VAR-SOM-MX6 Yocto GS R6 A1

VAR-SOM-MX6 - Yocto fsl-L3.10.31-1.1.0 Daisy R6

Introduction

• This Yocto Dora release is based on Freescale fsl-L3.10.31-1.1.0.0Beta release.
  
• This is the first alpha version. Early acess to customers. Major features:
  • Yocto Daisy
• Linux kernel: linux-imx_3.10.31_1.0.0_beta.
• Uboot: imx_v2013.10_beta_var3.
• Yocto Daisy: Based on fsl-L3.10.31-1.1.0_iMX6qdls Freescale release. Yocto Daisy support code is located in meta-variscite folder.

Supported hardware and features

Feature	Description
Board support	VAR-DVK-MX6,VAR-SOM-MX6
CPU	i.MX6 Quad i.MX6 Dual i.MX6 Dual lite i.MX6 Solo
Software platform	Yocto Dora release. Freescale release version 4.1 Meta freescale community release for Dora
Nand Recovery
NAND Flash size support	0.5,1.0,2.0,4.0 GB - Feature not available
DDR size support configuration	Solo:0.5,1.0 GB DualLite: 1.0GB Dual: 0.5,1.0GB Quad: 1.0,2.0 GB
SD-Card	+
Ethernet	10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
WLAN	Support for Wilink8, Dual band 5.0ghz + MIMO b/g/n - Feature not available
Bluetooth	4.0 - Feature not available
CAN bus	+
I2C	+
SPI	+
USB host	+
USB OTG	Device only. Host will be supported on next release
Uarts	x3, up to 3.6 Mbps. Minicom avilable to use with the port
RTC	+
Display	HDMI 720P,1080P LVDS0 (On board LVDS to RGB bridge, EVK supports 800x480 resolution) LVDS1 external display
Audio	Line IN/ Line out
Camera	ov5640 camera sensor. CB402 board can be purchased separately
SATA	+

Variscite Yocto Dora release 2 for Freescale i.MX6 version 4.1.

Installing required packages

Follow the link below and install all the required packages on your machine.

www.yoctoproject.org/docs/latest/yocto-project-qs/yocto-project-qs.html

For example, if your building machine is an Ubuntu machine:

sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo build-essential chrpath libsdl1.2-dev xterm lzop

Variscite Yocto build is tested with Ubuntu 12.04 lts.

Download Yocto Dora for i.MX6 with Variscite VAR-SOM-MX6 support

Use  "repo" to fetch Yocto and apply Variscite's patches for the BSP support:

• Install the `repo` utility:

$ mkdir ~/bin (this step may not be needed if the bin folder already exists)
$ curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
Add the following line to the .bashrc file to ensure that the ~/bin folder is in your PATH variable
$ export PATH=~/bin:$PATH

NOTE:
Reference repo is available on FTP.

• Clone Yocto Dora from Freescale's git:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir var-som-mx6-dora-v5
$ cd var-som-mx6-dora-v5
$ git config --global user.name "Your Name"
$ git config --global user.email "Your Email"
$ repo init -u git://git.freescale.com/imx/fsl-arm-yocto-bsp.git -b imx-3.10.17-1.0.0_ga
$ repo sync

• Download ftp.variscite.com/VAR-SOM-MX6/Software/Linux/Yocto/Release5/var_yocto_v5r3.tar.bz2
  
• Extract tarball:

$ cd ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5
$ tar xvf ~/Downloads/var_yocto_v5r3.tar.bz2
$ variscite/install

Comment:
This method will preserve the git repositories. It will enable you to track Variscite's changes, and your own.

Setup and Customize your Yocto build

Setup the environment and use build_var folder

$ . ./setup-environment build_var

Comment:
If you close your terminal and wish to build Yocto again, you should change directory to ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5 and run the above command again. build_var is your build directory and all bitbake commands should run from it

local.conf customizations

Edit you local.conf file:

$ gedit conf/local.conf 

Change parallel build and download directory: Set the build parameters to fully utilize your host machine's resources
BB_NUMBER_THREADS = '4'
PARALLEL_MAKE = '-j 6'
BB_NUMBER_THREADS should be your host machine's number of threads minus 2 or same. PARALLEL_MAKE should be the number of threads your host machine has plus two.

Change packages download directory: By defualt the path is set to "/opt/yocto_dl". Change ownership settings:

$ sudo mkdir /opt/yocto_dl
$ sudo chown <uname>.<uname> /opt/yocto_dl

Build your image

$ bitbake var-image-x11 

Other image build options:

image name	description
core-image-base	A console-only image that fully supports the target device hardware.
var-image-test	Image contains core-image-base plus Freescale test applications and multimedia components.
var-image-x11	Image contains core-image-sato with Freescale test applications and multimedia with hardware accelerated X11

The resulted images are locaated in tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6.
Looking at tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6 you will find 6 main files that are linked to the actual file

Image Name	How to use
var-image-x11-varsomimx6.ext3	Not in Use
var-image-x11-varsomimx6.sdcard	This image is for SD-Card boot. However, since default u-boot is built for NAND flash, follow the following procedure to replace with SD-Card U-boot. Booting from SD-Card is explained in details below. $ sudo dd if=tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/var-image-x11-varsomimx6.sdcard of=/dev/sdX bs=1024k Build u-boot out of tree for mmc as explained below and $ sudo dd if=SPL of=/dev/sdX bs=1K seek=1; sync $ sudo dd if=u-boot.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1K seek=69; sync devxxx = mmcblk0 or sdX. Do dmesg after you insert an SD-Card into your build system to figure out the device name Comment: Use "$ sudo gparted /dev/devxxx" Lable the second partition and call it "rootfs". Increase the second partition to include all avilable sd-card space.
var-image-x11-varsomimx6.tar.bz2	Used to create an NFS root file system on the host. $ sudo mkdir ../rootfs $ sudo rm -rf ../rootfs/* $ sudo tar xvf tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/var-image-x11-varsomimx6.tar.bz2 -C ../rootfs See apendix for setting an NFS server
var-image-x11-varsomimx6.ubi	Use the sdcard created above. Copy the file into it and use the folwing commands to flash them into nand. Coping files (mount the sd-card created above first): $ sudo mkdir /media/rootfs/opt/images $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/u-boot.img /media/rootfs/opt/images $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/SPL /media/rootfs/opt/images $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/uImage /media/rootfs/opt/images $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/uImage-imx6q-var-som.dtb /media/rootfs/opt/images/imx6q-var-som.dtb $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/uImage-imx6dl-var-som.dtb /media/rootfs/opt/images/imx6dl-var-som.dtb $ sudo cp tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/var-image-x11-varsomimx6.ubi /media/rootfs/opt/images $ sudo umount /media/rootfs $ sudo umount /media/BOT_varsomi Flashing on target: $ flash_eraseall /dev/mtd0 $ kobs-ng init -x /opt/images/SPL --search_exponent=1 -v $ flash_eraseall /dev/mtd1 $ nandwrite -p /dev/mtd1 /opt/images/u-boot.img Select one of: i.MX6Q / i.MX6D $ nandwrite -p /dev/mtd1 -s 0x1e0000 /opt/images/imx6q-var-som.dtb i.MX6DualLite / i.MX6 Solo $ nandwrite -p /dev/mtd1 -s 0x1e0000 /opt/images/imx6dl-var-som.dtb Linux kernel: $ flash_eraseall /dev/mtd2 $ nandwrite -p /dev/mtd2 /opt/images/uImage UBIFS: $ flash_eraseall /dev/mtd3 $ ubiformat /dev/mtd3 -f /opt/images/var-image-x11-varsomimx6.ubi -s 2048 -O 2048
uImage
u-boot	SPL

UBIFS

By default we create ubifs image for 0.5GB nand size. You can change the size by editing ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5/sources/meta-variscite/conf/machine/varsomimx6.conf
and change "include conf/machine/include/var-512mb-ubi.inc" into one of:

• "include conf/machine/include/var-512mb-ubi.inc"
• "include conf/machine/include/var-1gb-ubi.inc"
• "include conf/machine/include/var-2gb-ubi.inc"
• "include conf/machine/include/var-4gb-ubi.inc"

Anther option is to create the ubifs image manualy. 4GB nand example:

$ cd ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5
$ sudo mkdir rootfs
$ sudo tar xvf build_var/tmp/deploy/images/varsomimx6/var-image-x11-varsomimx6.tar.bz2 -C rootfs/
$ sudo mkfs.ubifs -r rootfs/ -o var-image-x11-varsomimx6q4.ubifs -m 4096 -e 504KiB -c 7835
$ ubinize -o var-image-x11-varsomimx6q4.ubi -m 4096 -p 512KiB -s 4096 -O 4096 ubinize.cfg

$ cat ubinize.cfg 
[ubifs]
mode=ubi
image=var-image-x11-varsomimx6q4.ubifs
vol_id=0
vol_type=dynamic
vol_name=rootfs
vol_flags=autoresize

Next steps

In sections 1-6 we explained how to build Yocto for VAR-SOM-MX6. We explained the results for nand (UBI) and for sd-card. At this point you should have a bootable sd-card with UBI images on it. You should be able to boot from the sd-card using the boot select button and flash the nand. Next steps:

• Build and deploy the compiler and tools.
• Fetch u-boot and compile it out of Yocto tools.
• Fetch Linux kernel and compile it out of Yocto tools.

Toolchain installation for out of Yocto builds

Build the toolchain by:

$ bitbake meta-ide-support
$ bitbake meta-toolchain

The output will be located at tmp/deploy/sdk/. On a 64 bit Ubuntu you will get:

poky-eglibc-x86_64-meta-toolchain-cortexa9hf-vfp-neon-toolchain-1.5.sh.

Install the tools by running:

$ tmp/deploy/sdk/poky-eglibc-x86_64-meta-toolchain-cortexa9hf-vfp-neon-toolchain-1.5.1.sh

Reply to all defaults 'y'
The toolchain name depend on your build machine and may change.

Build U-Boot out of Yocto tree

Note:
This is a single u-boot image that supports all VAR-SOM-MX6 SOM's.

Obtain sources:

$ cd ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5
$ git clone git://github.com/varigit/uboot-imx
$ cd uboot-imx/
$ git checkout -b imx_v2013.10_beta_var4 remotes/origin/imx_v2013.10_beta_var4

• follow above procedure for installing the toolchain

Build u-boot:

$ export PATH=/opt/poky/1.5.1/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi:$PATH
clean tree:
$ make -j6 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- mrproper
Choose build for SD-Card or NAND Flash:
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-  mx6var_som_sd_config
or
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-  mx6var_som_nand_config
Build U-BOOT:
$ make -j6 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-

Flash u-boot to the sd-card:

$ sudo dd if=SPL of=/dev/sdxxx bs=1K seek=1; sync
$ sudo dd if=u-boot.img of=/dev/sdxxx bs=1K seek=69; sync

In case of UBI copy it to the sd-card:

$ sudo cp SPL /media/rootfs/opt/images
$ sudo cp u-boot.img /media/rootfs/opt/images

Eject SD-Card gracefully from host machine

Build Linux out of Yocto tree

Get sources:

$ cd ~/var-som-mx6-dora-v5/
$ git clone git://github.com/varigit/linux-2.6-imx.git
$ cd linux-2.6-imx/
$ git checkout -b imx_3.10.17_1.0.0_ga_beta_var3 remotes/origin/imx_3.10.17_1.0.0_ga_beta_var3

Build the Linux kernel:

$ export PATH=/opt/poky/1.5.1/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi:$PATH
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- mrproper
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- imx_v7_var_defconfig
$ make -j6 LOADADDR=0x10008000 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- uImage
$ make -j6 LOADADDR=0x10008000 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- modules
Build the device tree for Dualite/Solo
$ make -j6 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- imx6dl-var-som.dtb
Build the device tree for Quad/Dual
$ make -j6 ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- imx6q-var-som.dtb

Copy the uImage and device tree to the sd-card boot partition or to the opt/image in order to be flashed to the nand. Copy modules to the sd-card

$ sudo make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-poky-linux-gnueabi- modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/media/rootfs/

Useful Bitbake commands

Bitbake Cheat Sheet

Useful bitbake commands

i.MX Yocto Project: ltib versus bitbake