Embedded module TQMa8MxNL - YOCTO Linux BSP documentation

Deployment Yocto

BSP Binaries

  1. All binaries are intended for the usage on a STKa8MxNL
  2. The symlinks point to the files of the last build

Target Machine: tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx

System Images

Boot Device Symlink File
SD Card/eMMC tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx.wic tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.wic

Bootstream (Bootloader) Binaries

Boot Device Symlink File
SD/eMMC imx-boot imx-boot-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx-sd.bin-flash_spl_uboot

Linux Kernel Image

Symlink File
Image Image–5.10-r0-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx-<build_timestamp>.bin

Devicetree Blobs

Symlink Description
imx8mn-tqma8mqnl-mba8mx.dtb Default
imx8mn-tqma8mqnl-mba8mx-lcdif-lvds-tm070jvhg33.dtb Default with LVDS interface activated
imx8mn-tqma8mqnl-mba8mx-lcdif-lvds-tm070jvhg33-imx327.dtb Default with CSI color Camera and LVDS activated
imx8mn-tqma8mqnl-mba8mx-lcdif-lvds-tm070jvhg33-ov9281.dtb Default with CSI monocrome Camera and LVDS activated
imx8mn-tqma8mqnl-mba8mx-rpmsg.dtb Default with RPMSG support

RootFS Images

Symlink File
tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx.ext4 tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.ext4
tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx.tar.gz tq-image-weston-tqma8mxnl-1gb-mba8mx-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.tar.gz

Yocto Partitions

SD / eMMC image

Sector 1) Size 2) Contents Linux (SD-Card) Linux (eMMC) Mountpoint
0x000000 … 0x000000 0x0001 sector / 512 B MBR / Partition Table unpartitioned area n/a
0x000001 … 0x00003F 0x003F sectors / 32256 B none
0x000040 … 0x001FFF 0x1FC0 sectors / 4064 kiB bootstream (U-Boot)
0x002000 … 0x003FFF 0x2000 sectors / 4 MiB U-Boot environment
0x004000 … 0x023FFF 0x20000 sectors / 64 MiB firmware (Kernel, devicetrees) mmcblk1p1 mmcblk0p1 /boot
0x024000 … actual size depends on contents of RootFS RootFS mmcblk1p2 mmcblk0p2 /

Create SD Card with BSP Image

The Image can be simply written to the SD Card by using the dd shell command in Linux: 

$ cd <path to your image>
$ sudo dd if=IMAGE-<build Timestamp>.rootfs.wic of=/dev/sdc bs=1M conv=fsync #Assuming the SD card is assigned to /dev/sdc

To identify the SD card in Linux the shell command dmesg can be used:

  1. Open a new terminal
  2. Execute the following command without plugged SD Card 
     $ dmesg | tail -n 15
  3. Insert SD Card and wait a few seconds
  4. Run the command from step two again
$ dmesg | tail -n 15 
 #plug in SD Card into the reader
$ dmesg | tail -n 15


Updating existing firmware over ethernet


A good approach to update the firmare components U-Boot,Linux kernel and devicetree in a running system it to load them from a tftp server.
This process requires a running TFTP server, please see the following page how to setup TFTP Server. After setting up the TFTP server, the binaries to be updated must be copied into the TFTP directory.

Update Process

1. Setup the Starterkit to boot from eMMC or SD
2. Connect the kit to the network with TFTP server supplying the binaries via ethernet on connector ETH1 (X18)
3. Power up the system and interrupt the boot process in U-Boot

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
=>

3. Setup the ethernet interface:

Set network settings manually

Set network settings using DHCP


4. Set U-Boot variable mmcdev according to the drive you want to write to. 

=> setenv mmcdev <device_number>

Device assignment:
mmcdev 0 = eMMC
mmcdev 1 = SD Card

5. Set the file name of the binary to update in U-Boot :

  • For U-Boot update: ⇒ setenv uboot <filename>
    e.g. bootstream.bin
  • For devicetree update: ⇒ setenv fdt_file <filename>
    e.g. DEVICETREE
  • For Linux kernel update: ⇒ setenv image <filename>
    e.g. KERNELIMAGE

6. Perform Update by running the update command:

  • U-Boot update: 
    => run update_uboot_mmc


  • Device Tree update:
    => run update_fdt_mmc


  • Kernel update:
    => run update_kernel_mmc


The variables can be saved with the command saveenv to keep the values permanently.

Copy Firmware from SD card to eMMC using U-Boot

  • Write Image to SD card (use dd command under Linux or Win32diskImager under Windows)
  • Set Starterkit to boot from SD, please see DIP Switch Settings
  • Interrupt the boot process to get to the U-Boot prompt
  • Use the following commands to copy the SD card to eMMMC
The following commands are based on the default eMMC/SD image partitioning.

1. Run the following commands in the Uboot shell to create update script: 

 
setenv root_loop 'setenv start 24000 && setenv r1 $rootblks16 && while itest $r1 -gt 0; do if itest $r1 -gt 0x100000; then setenv count 0x100000; else setenv count $r1; fi && mmc dev 1 && mmc read $loadaddr $start $count && mmc dev 0 && mmc write $loadaddr $start $count && setexpr start $start + $count && setexpr r1 $r1 - $count; done; setenv r1; setenv start; setenv count'
 
setenv  install_firmware 'echo MBR... && mmc dev 1 && mmc read $loadaddr 0 1 && mmc dev 0 && mmc write $loadaddr 0 1 && echo Bootstream... && mmc dev 1 && mmc read $loadaddr 3F 1FC0 && mmc dev 0 && mmc write $loadaddr 3F 1FC0 && echo U-Boot environment... && mmc dev 1 && mmc read $loadaddr 2000 2000 && mmc dev 0 && mmc write $loadaddr 2000 2000 && echo Firmware Partition... && mmc dev 1 && mmc read $loadaddr 4000 20000 && mmc dev 0 && mmc write $loadaddr 4000 20000  && echo Root FS... && run root_loop'
  • Create the variable rootblks16 to hold the size of the root filesystem as a hex number representing the size as the amount of 512 byte blocks:
setenv rootblks16 <number of 512 byte blocks as hex number>
Example for RootFS size of 2070MB:
2070 * 1024 * 1024 = 2170552320
2170552320 / 512 = 4239360
4239360 = 40B000HEX
setenv rootblks16 0x40B000


2. Save environment U-boot environment (optional): 

=> saveenv


3. run the following command to start the update procedure: 

=> run install_firmware

Using NFS boot

Prerequisites

To boot the TQMa8MxNL from network you need a working bootloader in eMMC/SD-card or SPI-NOR (placement option on TQMa8MxNL ) which is able to get the kernel image over tftp and to provide the kernel with commandline settings for NFS. The dtb-file and kernel image have to be provided via tftp and the rootfs via nfs.

Configuration of U-Boot Environment

The bootloader environment needs to be modified to work with your tftp-server and your nfs-server.

1. Prepare network interface:

Set network settings manually

Set network settings using DHCP

2. set the Uboot variables for TFTP and NFS:

  • setenv rootpath <rootpath> (NFS directory has to set in /etc/exports on the Computer that runs the NFS server first)
  • setenv fdt_file <fdt_file> (name of devicetree file to be downloaded from the tftp server)
  • setenv image <image> (name of the Linux kernel image to be downloaded from the tftp server)

3. Run the uboot script to boot from nfs:

uboot command to start netboot
=> run netboot
1) , 2)
sector size = 512 B

  • Last modified: 2022/08/04 15:02