Laird Connectivity and Boundary Devices are now EzurioYocto Hardknott Release for i.MX8 Platforms
Published on September 23, 2021
We are pleased to announce a new Yocto release Hardknott for our Nitrogen8 family of SBCs and SOMs based on i.MX8 processors. This release includes our latest 5.10 kernel. Below you will find download links for the images as well as detailed instructions for building including a features set.
For the Impatient
You can download the Yocto images from here:- For Nitrogen8M platform:
- For Nitrogen8M Mini platform:
- For Nitrogen8M Nano platform:
- For Nitrogen8M Plus platform:
How to Burn
You can program the SW to eMMC using the instructions below: programming-emmc-on-i-mx-platforms You can also program the SW to SD Card or USB Stick via zcat and dd under Linux:~$ zcat *boundary-image*.wic.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M
In addition, you can use the balenaEtcher utility to flash the eMMC, SD Card or USB stick via Windows or Linux:
balenaEtcher
Build procedure
This image uses the hardknott branch of our boundary-bsp-platform repository. To build the image, we recommend using a Docker Container so that you can build with a reproducible and stable build environment. Otherwise, you’ll need these packages installed as well as this repo tool that can be installed like this:~$ sudo apt-get install repo
Then create your build directory and initialize everything.
~$ mkdir ~/hardknott && cd hardknott
~/hardknott$ repo init -u https://github.com/boundarydevices/boundary-bsp-platform -b hardknott
~/hardknott$ repo sync
Next, setup the environment for building. For this image we will be building our boundary-xwayland distro for the target machine
~/hardknott$ MACHINE=<MACHINE> DISTRO=boundary-xwayland . setup-environment build
Now bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full which is equivalent to fsl-image-multimedia-full with Boundary-specific packages added such as BD-SDMAC support.
~/hardknott/build$ bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full
After some time this should build the same image as above, with the layers being at commits as per the time when repo sync was executed. If you are interested in each project revision at the time of the build, you can find a frozen manifest for those images here.
The image file will deploy to tmp/deploy/images/{MACHINE}/boundary-image-multimedia-full-{MACHINE}.wic.gz.
Features list
The image built above contains the following components:- Linux kernel 5.10.x_2.0.0
- U-Boot 2020.10
- Weston 9.0.0 for i.MX
- GStreamer 1.16.2 for i.MX
- GPU Vivante libraries 6.4.3p1.4
- VPU Hantro libraries v1.20.0
- ISP VVCAM v4.2.2.11
- qcacld-lea-2.0 Wi-Fi driver for BD-SDMAC
- BlueZ 5.56 with support for BD-SDMAC
Display support
Please make sure your platform includes the latest U-Boot: This version of U-Boot supports the display configuration, allowing to use any of the following displays:- HDMI display (up to 4k, 1080p recommended)
- 7" 1280x800 BD070LIC2
- 10" 1280x800 BD101LCC2
=> setenv cmd_custom 'setenv bootargs $bootargs drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid/1280x720.bin'
=> saveenv
GPU acceleration
As usual, in order to test the GPU you can use the example apps provided by Vivante:root@<MACHINE>:~# /opt/imx-gpu-sdk/GLES2/Blur/GLES2.Blur_Wayland -d
Camera input
Camera MIPI-CSI input can be checked using our OV5640 MIPI with GStreamer:root@<MACHINE>:~# gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! \
video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720 ! waylandsink
Basler camera input
This build fully supports the Basler daA3840 8MP camera from Basler when using our Nitrogen 8M Plus which is part of our Evaluation Kit:
The isp-vvcam driver and imx8-isp service are loaded automatically when the camera is detected.
From there a simple GStreamer pipeline will allow you to see the stream:
root@nitrogen8mp:~# gst-launch-1.0 -v v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! waylandsink
...
[ 352.348796] wdr3 res: 1920 1080
[ 352.352471] enter isp_mi_start
[ 357.581179] ###### 62.42 fps ######
[ 362.771924] ###### 62.42 fps ######
Ethernet
Once theeth0 interface is up, you can use iperf3 to check Ethernet performances:
root@<MACHINE>:~# iperf3 -c 192.168.1.60
Connecting to host 192.168.1.60, port 5201
[ 5] local 192.168.1.13 port 32880 connected to 192.168.1.60 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.09 GBytes 938 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.04 sec 1.09 GBytes 932 Mbits/sec receiver
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi can be tested with nmcli as shown below:root@<MACHINE>:~# nmcli d wifi connect <network_name> password <password>
root@<MACHINE>:~# iw wlan0 link
Connected to a4:3e:51:08:54:f6 (on wlan0)
SSID: Jabu_5GHz
freq: 5240
RX: 3243 bytes (31 packets)
TX: 9117 bytes (48 packets)
signal: -79 dBm
tx bitrate: 15.0 MBit/s MCS 0 40MHz short GI
root@<MACHINE>:~# ping google.com -Iwlan0
PING google.com (216.58.198.206): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.58.198.206: seq=0 ttl=55 time=3.470 ms
...
Bluetooth
For products with a Silex bluetooth module, you'll be able to connect using our handy silex-uart script with the following commands:root@<MACHINE>:~# /usr/share/silex-uart/silex-uart.sh start
Starting silex-uart
rfkill on/off cycle.
silex found
root@<MACHINE>:~# hciconfig hci0 up
root@<MACHINE>:~# hcitool scan
Scanning ...
11:22:DE:AD:BE:EF Some Device
VPU decoding
If your platform supports VPU decoding, here is an example on how to test it using the gplay tool:root@<MACHINE>:~# wget http://linode.boundarydevices.com/videos/Hobbit-1080p.mov
root@<MACHINE>:~# gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///home/root/Hobbit-1080p.mov video-sink=autovideosink
VPU encoding
Here is a simple example that shows how to encode a video stream from the camera into H.264 using the VPU encoder:root@<MACHINE>:~# gst-launch-1.0 -v -e v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! 'video/x-raw,width=1920,height=1080' \
! vpuenc_h264 ! filesink location=test.h264
^C
root@<MACHINE>:~# gst-launch-1.0 filesrc location=test.h264 typefind=true ! 'video/x-h264' ! \
h264parse ! vpudec ! waylandsink
CAN
For platforms with CAN, you'll be able to bring up the interface(s) using this following command:root@<MACHINE>:~# ip link set can0 up type can bitrate 500000