Embedded module TQMLX2160A - YOCTO Linux BSP documentation


Deployment Yocto

BSP Binaries

  1. All binaries are intended for the usage on the STKLX2160a
  2. The symlinks point to the files of the last build

Target Machine: tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a

System Image

Boot device Symlink File
SD Card/eMMC tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a.wic tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.wic

Bootstream (Bootloader) Binary

Boot Device Symlink File
SD Card/eMMC u-boot.bin u-boot-tfa-2019.04-r0.bin

Linux Kernel Binary

Symlink File
Image Image--5.4-r0-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.bin

Devicetree Binarys

Symlink Description
fsl-lx2160a-mblx2160a.dtb default device tree blob for TQMLX2160A on MBLX2160A

RootFS Images

Symlink File
tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a.ext4 tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.ext4
tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a.tar.gz tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.tar.gz
tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a.ubi tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.ubi
tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a.ubifs tq-image-generic-tqmlx2160a-mblx2160a-<build_timestamp>.rootfs.ubifs

Partitions

SD / eMMC partitioning

Sector1) Size2) Contents Linux (SD-Card) Linux (eMMC) Mountpoint
0x000000 … 0x000000 0x0001 sector / 512 B MBR / Partition Table unpartitioned area n/a
0x000001 … 0x000007 0x0007 sector / 3584 B none
0x000008 … 0x000800 0x07F8 sector / 1020 kiB rcw-pbi
0x000801 … 0x002800 0x2000 sector / 4 MiB U-Boot
0x002801 … 0x004600 0x1800 sector / 3 MiB U-Boot environment
0x004601 … 0x008600 0x4000 sector / 8 MiB ddr-fw
0x008601 … 0x018600 0x10000 sector / 32 MiB firmware (Kernel, devicetrees) mmcblk1p1 mmcblk0p1 /boot
0x018001 … actual size depends on contents of RootFS rootFS mmcblk1p2 mmcblk0p2 /

Octal SPI NOR

Memory Range Usage
0x000000000000-0x000000100000 RCW-PBL
0x000000100000-0x000000300000 U-Boot
0x000000500000-0x000000600000 U-Boot-Env
0x000000800000-0x000000a00000 DDR-PHY
0x000000a00000-0x000000d00000 DPAA2-MC
0x000000d00000-0x000000e00000 DPAA2-DPL
0x000000e00000-0x000000f00000 DPAA2-DPC
0x000000f00000-0x000001000000 Linux-DTB
0x000001000000-0x000003000000 Kernel
0x000003000000-0x000008000000 RootFS UBI

Updating SPI Flash Devices

Flash SPI devices via U-Boot

Before flashing the SPI devices on the TQMLX2160, ensure that the DIP switches are configured for SD-Card/eMMC boot mode. Once the correct boot mode is set, use switch S1-4 (ON or OFF) to select the desired SPI device for flashing. This switch specifically controls the NOR_SWAP# signal, which determines which SPI flash device is targeted.
To check whether NOR-Swap is enabled or disabled, you can take a look at the display on the MBLX2160 under the S1 information page. Depending on how S1-4 is set, the signal should be enabled/disabled.

It is important to perform a power cycle after switching S1-4 ON/OFF

For the following commands, we are using a USB storage device as an example source for loading the bootloader and PBL images into memory, but you could also retrieve these files for example via TFTP before writing them to the SPI flash with the sf write command. Please ensure that you change the files in the < > to the names of the files you require. 

$ usb start
$ sf probe
$ fatload usb 0:1 ${fileaddr} <fip.bin>
$ sf write ${fileaddr} ${uboot_spi_offset} ${filesize}

$ fatload usb 0:1 $fileaddr <bl2_flexspi_nor.pbl>
$ sf write ${fileaddr} ${pbl_spi_offset} ${filesize}

SD Card

Size Uasage
0x0001 sectors 512 Byte MBR /Partition Table
0x0007 sectors 3584 Byte Free
0x1000 / RCW-PBL
U-Boot
DDR-PHY
Boot Partition
RootFS ext4

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=tq-image-generic.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 depands on SerDes configuration.
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 the file name of the binary to update in U-Boot :

  • For U-Boot update on eMMC: ⇒ setenv uboot <filename>
    e.g. fip_uboot.bin
  • For U-Boot update on SD Card: ⇒ setenv uboot <filename>
    e.g. fip_uboot.bin
  • For U-Boot update on QSPI NOR Flash: ⇒ setenv uboot <filename>
    e.g. fip_uboot.bin


  • For PBL update on eMMC: ⇒ setenv pbl_sdmmc <filename>
    e.g. bl2_auto.pbl
  • For PBL update on SD Card: ⇒ setenv sdmmc <filename>
    e.g. bl2_auto.pbl
  • For PBL update on QSPI NOR Flash: ⇒ setenv pbl_spi <filename>
    e.g. bl2_flexspi_nor.pbl


5. Perform U-Boot Update by running the update command:

  • U-Boot update on eMMC: 
    => run update_uboot_mmc


  • U-Boot update on SD Card: 
    => run update_uboot_sd


  • U-Boot update on QSPI NOR Flash: 
    => run update_uboot_spi


6. Perform PBL Update by running the update command:

  • PBL update on eMMC: 
    => run update_pbl_mmc


  • PBL update on SD Card: 
    => run update_pbl_sd


  • PBL update on QSPI NOR Flash: 
    => run update_pbl_spi


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 0 && mmc read $loadaddr $start $count && mmc dev 1 && mmc write $loadaddr $start $count && setexpr start $start + $count && setexpr r1 $r1 - $count; done; setenv r1; setenv start; setenv count'
 
setenv install_firmware '  echo Root FS... && run root_loop'
setenv install_mbr_emmc 'echo MBR...; mmc dev 0; mmc read $loadaddr 0 1; mmc dev 1; mmc write $loadaddr 0 1'
setenv install_uboot_emmc 'echo U-Boot...; mmc dev 0; mmc read $loadaddr 800 1800 mmc dev 1; mmc write $loadaddr 800 1800'
setenv install_uboot_env_emmc 'echo U-Boot environment...; mmc dev 0; mmc read $loadaddr 2800 1800; mmc dev 1; mmc write $loadaddr 2800 1800'
setenv install_ddr_fw 'echo DDR Firmware...; mmc dev 0; mmc read $loadaddr 4600 4000; mmc dev 1; mmc write $loadaddr 4000 4000'
setenv install_fw_part 'echo Firmware Partition...; mmc dev 0; mmc read $loadaddr 8600 18600; mmc dev 1; mmc write $loadaddr 8600 18600'
setenv install_rootfs 'echo Root FS...; run root_loop'


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 @mod_name@ from network you need a working bootloader in eMMC/SD-card or SPI-NOR (placement option on @mod_name@ ) 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