Debian Build Release Stage
This page is using the default release RELEASE_STRETCH_V1.0_DART-MX8M.
To view this page for a specific Variscite SoM and software release, please follow these steps:
- Visit variwiki.com
- Select your SoM
- Select the software release
Overview
This page describes how to build and install Debian Stretch on Variscite boards with DART-MX8M.
- Please note that the build script is based on debootstrap. As described in the following instructions, it's kindly suggested to create the build folder on the main Ubuntu volume on your host PC rather than an external media. Using an external media, although automatically mounted, will cause debootstrap to complain about access rights (even when running the script with sudo).
- From time to time, the servers from which the build script retrieves data may be unavailable. Usually, this is only a temporary issue, please try again at a later time.
Setup Development Environment
Please refer to the page Debian Development Environment to learn how to set up a suitable development environment.
Installing required packages
Please make sure your host PC, running a suitable Ubuntu, is up to date:
$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Then, install the following packages:
$ sudo apt-get install binfmt-support qemu qemu-user-static debootstrap kpartx \ lvm2 dosfstools gpart binutils bison git lib32ncurses5-dev libssl-dev python-m2crypto gawk wget \ git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib build-essential chrpath socat libsdl1.2-dev \ autoconf libtool libglib2.0-dev libarchive-dev python-git xterm sed cvs subversion \ kmod coreutils texi2html bc docbook-utils python-pysqlite2 help2man make gcc g++ \ desktop-file-utils libgl1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa-dev mercurial automake groff curl \ lzop asciidoc u-boot-tools mtd-utils device-tree-compiler flex cmake
Reference documentation
Documentation is available from https://www.debian.org/doc/
Download Debian build script
Download archive containing the build script and support files for building Debian Stretch for this board.
You can choose between downloading a release tag or downloading the latest revision (recommended). Follow only one of the next two bullet sections, accordingly:
- Download the latest revision:
$ cd ~ $ git clone https://github.com/varigit/debian-var.git -b debian_stretch_mx8m_var01 var_mx8m_dart_debian
or
- Download a release tag:
Each release in https://github.com/varigit/debian-var/releases corresponds to a tag.
One can find a list of all available tags in https://github.com/varigit/debian-var/tags.
To target a specific release/tag, run the following:
$ cd ~ $ git clone https://github.com/varigit/debian-var.git -b TAG_NAME var_mx8m_dart_debian
For example:
$ cd ~ $ git clone https://github.com/varigit/debian-var.git -b var_mx8m_dart_debian
Setup and build Debian
Deploy sources
Download all necessary resources required for the Debian build using the script command -c deploy.
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c deploy
This will download the toolchain, bootloader, kernel, firmware blobs, and so on, to the folder ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/src and in case of the toolchain to ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/toolchain.
If you want to re-deploy the source(s), delete the entire folder ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/src or just delete the desired subfolder and reinvoke the deploy command.
Build all
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c all |& tee build.log
Build by parts
Build bootloader
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c bootloader
Build kernel, dtb files and kernel modules
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c kernel $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c modules
-c kernel) also includes the built of the device tree blobs.
Build rootfs
Before you build the rootfs, please ensure all parts (bootloader, kernel, device tree blobs, and so on) are in place since they are dependencies of the rootfs build.
Run the following commands to build the rootfs:
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c rootfs
You can find the rootfs at ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/rootfs and an archive (rootfs.tar.gz) at ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/output.
Pack rootfs
Assuming you've already built the rootfs, by following the Build rootfs or Build all step, you can (re-)create the archive as a single and separate step:
$ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c rtar
Build Results
The resulted images are located in ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian/output/.
| Image name |
How to use |
|---|---|
| rootfs.tar.gz | Root filesystem tarball used for installation on SD card and eMMC |
| Image.gz | Linux kernel image |
| imx-boot-sd.bin | U-Boot built for SD card and eMMC |
| Device Tree name |
Details |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-emmc-wifi-dual-display.dtb | DART-MX8M with HDMI+LVDS, eMMC and WiFi (SD card disabled) |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-emmc-wifi-hdmi.dtb | DART-MX8M with HDMI, eMMC and WiFi (SD card disabled) |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-emmc-wifi-lvds.dtb | DART-MX8M with LVDS, eMMC and WiFi (SD card disabled) |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-sd-emmc-dual-display.dtb | DART-MX8M with HDMI+LVDS, eMMC and SD (WiFi card disabled) |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-sd-emmc-hdmi.dtb | DART-MX8M with HDMI, eMMC and SD (WiFi card disabled) |
| fsl-imx8mq-var-dart-sd-emmc-lvds.dtb | DART-MX8M with LVDS, eMMC and SD (WiFi card disabled) |
Create a bootable SD card
SD card structure
This is the structure of our Recovery/Extended SD card:
The SD card is divided into 2 sections, as shown in the picture above:
- The first unallocated 8MiB section is reserved for U-Boot. It can be replaced using the dd command as described in the Debian Build U-Boot section.
- The first partition is an ext4 partition that contains the complete root filesystem (including kernel image and device tree files under /boot).
The last unallocated area is not used. It is there so that the rootfs will fit on any 4GB SD card, as not all 4GB SD cards are really the same size. If you want, you can use a program such as GParted to resize the roofs partition and make it end at the end of your specific SD card (of course, you can also use SD cards with much bigger capacity than 4GB, and then it makes more sense to resize the partition).
Create a Debian bootable SD card
- Follow the above steps for make rootfs, kernel, bootloader;
- Insert the SD card to card reader connected to a host system;
- Run the following commands:
$ cd ~/var_mx8m_dart_debian $ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c sdcard -d /dev/sdX
where '/dev/sdX' path to the block SD device in your system.
Create a Debian bootable SD card image using a loop device
It is also possible to use the "./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh" script to create a boot SD card image while using a loop device instead of attaching a real physical SD card.
Create an empty file using the following command:
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img bs=1M count=3720
The above command creates a 3720MiB file representing the SD card.
Attach the first available loop device to this file:
$ sudo losetup -Pf imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img
To find the actual loop device being used, run:
$ losetup -a | grep imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img
Write the content to the loop device to generate the SD card image:
$ sudo ./make_var_mx8m_dart_debian.sh -c sdcard -d /dev/loopX
(Replace /dev/loopX with your actual loop device, e.g. /dev/loop0)
Detach the loop device from the file:
$ sudo losetup -d /dev/loopX
To compress the SD card image file use the following command:
$ gzip -9 imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img
This will create a gz archive imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img.gz of the SD card image.
Clone a Debian bootable SD card image
To write the SD card image to a real SD card device, use the following command:
$ zcat imx8m-var-dart-debian-sd.img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M && sync
where '/dev/sdX' path to the block SD device in your system.
Please refer also to Debian Recovery SD Card - Write the image to an SD Card.
Boot the board with a bootable SD card
Note: The WiFi is not operational when booting from SD card, as the WiFi and SD card are using the same SDIO interface.
A typical use-case is to boot from an SD card, flash the eMMC, and re-boot from the eMMC to have the WiFi operational.
Setting the Boot Mode
Make sure the BOOT SELECT DIP switch on the carrier board is set correctly before you power on the board.
SW7 0 : Boot from SD card 1 : Boot from eMMC
Device tree selection in U-Boot
As shown in the Build Results table above, we have different kernel device trees, corresponding to our different H/W configurations (sometimes they are renamed without the "zImage-" prefix).
In U-Boot, set the device tree file manually:
$ setenv fdt_file YOUR_DTB_FILE $ saveenv
Linux console access
| User name | User password | User descriptor |
|---|---|---|
| root | root | system administrator |
| user | user | local user |
| x_user | used for X session access |
Please note: Vivante libraies for this release do not support X11, only weston backend is provided
Flash images to eMMC
To install Debian to the on-SOM eMMC, run the following command as root:
# install_debian.sh -d <lvds|hdmi|dp|dual-display>
where the "-d" option set display type, default is lvds. The above script is located in /usr/sbin in the rootfs of the SD card used to boot Debian.