DART-MX8M - Android Oreo Android O8.1.0_r14 Developer Guide

Introduction

This Wiki describes how to build and deploy Android Oreo on the DART-MX8M. It is based on NXP's imx_8.1.0_1.3.0_8m_ANDROID release

Overview

The objective of this document is to guide DART-MX8M Android developers to obtain Android Oreo sources, setting up host environment, compilation, and deployment.

This document contains instructions for:

Hardware and software requirements.
Setup the hardware.
Setup the toolchain.
Download & build the sources.
Install the binaries on the DART-MX8M SOM and variants.

Supported hardware and features

Feature	Description
SOM support	DART-MX8M
Carrier Board support	VAR-DT8MCustomBoard
CPU	i.MX8M
eMMC	up to 64GB
DDR size support configuration	up to 4GB
SD card	+
Wired Network	10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
Wireless Network	Support for LWB5, 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n STA, AP, & Wi-Fi Direct Mode SmartConfig
Bluetooth	4.2 / BLE
SPI	+
I2C	+
USB host	+
USB OTG	Host and Device
Uarts	x4, up to 4 Mbps.
RTC	+
Display	HDMI: V2.0a up to 4Kp60 LVDS Dual 1920×1080 24-bit MIPI-DSI 1920×1080 24-bit
Audio	Line IN / HP
Camera	2x MIPI-CSI2
PCIE	+

Hardware Requirements

You will need the Variscite DART-MX8M based evaluation kit.

Host (PC) setup requirements

The host development environment for Android is based on Ubuntu and Debian, please install Ubuntu version 14.04/16.04 64bit LTS http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop or Debian 8.4 64bit https://www.debian.org/releases

If you are running Linux in a virtual machine, you need at least 16GB of RAM/swap.

Note: Do not use other Ubuntu or Debian releases, than recommended above.

Install required packages on host PC

$ sudo apt-get -y install git-core gnupg flex bison gperf build-essential zip curl zlib1g-dev gcc-multilib g++-multilib 
$ sudo apt-get -y install libc6-dev-i386 lib32ncurses5-dev x11proto-core-dev libx11-dev lib32z-dev ccache libgl1-mesa-dev libxml2-utils 
$ sudo apt-get -y install xsltproc unzip mtd-utils u-boot-tools lzop liblzo2-2 liblzo2-dev zlib1g-dev liblz-dev uuid uuid-dev android-tools-fsutils
$ sudo apt-get -y install bc

Install the OpenJDK

Android Nougat requires OpenJDK 8.

To install it:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk

If your Ubuntu version is missing the package (which shouldn't happen), add the PPA repository and run the previous commands again:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openjdk-r/ppa

Update the default Java version by running:

$ sudo update-alternatives --config java
$ sudo update-alternatives --config javac

Note: The build process requires about 135GB of free space.

Obtain source code

Variscite's Linux kernel and U-Boot are available through Github.
Required patches for the Android file system are under: https://variscite-public.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/DART-MX8M/Software/Android/Android_iMX8M_O810_130/ in Variscite's FTP

Files:

imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m.tar.gz - NXP's i.MX8M Android O8.1.0_1.3.0 original BSP patch files.

Get NXP's Android Release Package

$ mkdir ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m
$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m
$ tar xvf ~/Downloads/imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m.tar.gz

Download Google Android Android O8.1.0_r14

$ mkdir ~/bin
$ curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
$ chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
$ export PATH=~/bin:$PATH
$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m
$ source imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/imx_android_setup.sh

Note : Since Oreo the distribution of Android Source code is partially hosted on Linux Foundation https://source.codeaurora.org/*

Let the script to finish and it should create "~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/android_build" folder

$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/android_build; mkdir -p vendor/variscite/

Clone Variscite's U-Boot and Linux kernel sources

$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/android_build/vendor/variscite/
$ git clone https://github.com/varigit/uboot-imx.git -b imx_v2017.03_4.9.51_imx8m_ga_var01
$ git clone https://github.com/varigit/linux-imx kernel_imx -b o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m-ga_var01

Apply Variscite's i.MX platforms' patches

$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/android_build/device
$ git clone https://github.com/varigit/MX6x-android.git -b o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m-ga-var01 variscite
$ variscite/scripts/install.sh

Build Android Images

Change to Android top level directory.

$ cd ~/var_imx-o8.1.0_1.3.0_8m/android_build
$ source build/envsetup.sh
$ lunch dart_mx8m-eng
or
$ lunch dart_mx8m-userdebug

Note: dart_mx8m-userdebug creates a debuggable version of Android. dart_mx8m-eng creates an engineering version of Android. Development mode enable and development tools are available on target.

$ export PATH=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/bin:$PATH

Switching from eMMC build to SD card build and vice versa

Differently from previous Android BSPs, the boot media is autodetected at boot time.

Build Android

$ make -j4 2>&1 | tee build1-1.log

Images created by the Android build for Variscite MX8M system

If you do ls out/target/product/dart_mx8m/

Image	Description
system.img	Android system image file. SOM agnostics.
vendor.img	Android vendor image file. SOM agnostics.
u-boot-imx8m-var-dart.imx	U-Boot for eMMC/SD card boot. SOM agnostics.
boot-<name>.img recovery-<name>.img vbmeta-<name>.img	configuration dependent
<name> is one of:	imx8m-var-dart-emmc-wifi-dcss-lvds - Supports LVDS (via DCSS) / WiFi imx8m-var-dart-emmc-wifi-lcdif-lvds - Supports LVDS (via LCDIF) / WiFi imx8m-var-dart-emmc-wifi-hdmi - Supports HDMI / WiFi imx8m-var-dart-sd-emmc-dcss-lvds - Supports LVDS (via DCSS) / SD imx8m-var-dart-sd-emmc-lcdif-lvds - Supports LVDS (via LCDIF) / SD imx8m-var-dart-sd-emmc-hdmi - Supports HDMI/SD

Boot options

Boot options of the Android:
1. Directly from SD card
2. U-Boot boots from on-SOM eMMC

Flash and boot Android from SD card

Create a bootable SD card

Partition and format SD card, and copy all images

$ sudo ./var-mksdcard.sh -f SETUP_NAME /dev/sdX;sync

Replace SETUP_NAME with the actual desired setup name accrding to the second table in the "images created" section.
Replace /dev/sdX with your true device, You can identify it with dmesg.

Boot From SD card

Power-off the board.
Insert the SD card into the SD card slot of the carrier board (DVK)
Make sure the Boot Mode is set to SD card: see Setting the Boot Mode section
Power up the board - it will boot into Linux from the SD card

Flash and boot Android from eMMC

eMMC based system consist of:

SPL and U-Boot on NAND flash
Rest of Android images in eMMC

Preparing images

All Android built images but system.img are ready for flashing out of the default build.

The default system.img and vendor.img format is suitable for flashing using fastboot, and must be modified for flashing using 'dd'.

$ cd out/target/product/dart_mx8m
$ simg2img system.img system_raw.img
$ simg2img vendor.img vendor_raw.img

Make sure you built Android for eMMC

Flashing Android from Linux shell (when the primary installation android)

An example of flashing eMMC, can be found here.

Follow the following steps instructions above:

1. Preparing a rescue SD card;

2. Flash from command line (use the install_android.sh script)

Further, follow the steps described in paragraph "Flashing Android with USB Fastboot"

Flashing Android with USB Fastboot

Coming soon

Android recovery mode