Yocto release for i.MX8M MINI

We’ve received many requests for Yocto support on our Nitrogen8M Mini SBC based on the i.MX8M MINI processor. Below you will find the download link for the image as well as detailed instructions for the build including a features set.

For the Impatient

You can download the Yocto image from here:

• 20200110-boundary-image-multimedia-full-nitrogen8mm.wic.gz for Nitrogen8M Mini platforms

As usual, you’ll need to register on our site and agree to the EULA because it contains NXP content.

The image is a SD card image that can be restored using zcat and dd under Linux.

~$ zcat *boundary-image*.wic.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

In addition, you can use the etcher utility to flash the SD Card or USB stick via Windows or Linux:

balena-etcher 

Build procedure

This image uses the warrior branch of our boundary-bsp-platform repository. 

This is mostly a clone of fsl-community-bsp-platform with meta-boundary added in.

To build the image, 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 ~/yocto-imx8m && cd yocto-imx8mm
~/yocto-imx8mm$ repo init -u https://github.com/boundarydevices/boundary-bsp-platform -b warrior
~/yocto-imx8mm$ repo sync

Setup the environment for building, in this example we will be building our boundary-wayland distro for nitrogen8mm

~/yocto-imx8mm$ MACHINE=nitrogen8mm DISTRO=boundary-wayland . setup-environment build

Now bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full which is equivalent to fsl-image-multimedia-full with Boundary-specific packages such as BD-SDMAC support

~/yocto-imx8mm/build$ bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full

After some time this should build the same image as above.

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:

• GPU Vivante libraries 6.2.4p1.8
• VPU Hantro libraries v1.8.0
• GStreamer1.0 1.14.0 for i.MX
• Weston 4.0.0 for i.MX
• qcacld-2.0 Wi-Fi driver for BD-SDMAC
• BlueZ 5.50 with support for BD-SDMAC

The next sub-sections will describe how to test most features.

Display support

Please make sure your platform includes the latest U-Boot for i.MX8M MINI:

• U-Boot v2018.07

This version of U-Boot supports the display configuration, allowing to use any of the following displays:

• HDMI display (1080p)
• 7″ 1280×800 MIPI BD070LIC2_8M
• 8″ 1920×1200 MIPI BD080MCC1
• 10″ 1280×800 MIPI BD101LCC2_8M

Note that we’ve noticed that the NXP HDMI driver is picky when it comes to custom display timings (sometimes refuses to set the clock).

So if you are experiencing any issue with HDMI, please try entering the following commands in U-Boot in order to force the use of standard timings:

=> setenv cmd_custom 'setenv bootargs $bootargs drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid/1280x720.bin'
=> saveenv

GPU acceleration

In order to test the GPU, you can either use the standard Weston EGL programs or the ones provided by Vivante.

Here are a few examples:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# weston-simple-egl &
root@nitrogen8mm:~# cd /opt/viv_samples/vdk/
root@nitrogen8mm:/opt/viv_samples/vdk# ./tutorial7

VPU decoding

The i.MX8MM processor can decode videos with a resolution up to 1080p so here is an example using GPlay tool:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# wget http://linode.boundarydevices.com/videos/Hobbit-1080p.mov
root@nitrogen8mm:~# gplay-1.0 --video-sink=glimagesink Hobbit-1080p.mov 

Camera input

Camera MIPI-CSI input can be checked using our OV5640 MIPI with GStreamer:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! \
    video/x-raw,width=1280,height=720 ! glimagesink

Ethernet

Once the eth0 interface is up, you can use iperf3 to check Ethernet performances:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# 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

Same goes for the Wi-Fi that can be tested just as easily:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# nmcli d wifi connect <network_name> password <password>
root@nitrogen8mm:~# 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@nitrogen8mm:~# 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 Bluetooth, you’ll be able to connect using these commands:

root@nitrogen8mm:~# hciconfig hci0 up
root@nitrogen8mm:~# hcitool scan
Scanning ...
11:22:DE:AD:BE:EF    Some Device

root@nitrogen8mm:~# ip link set can0 up type can bitrate 500000
root@nitrogen8mm:~# ifconfig can0 up

From this point, you can use commands such as candsend and candump to send or display messages on the bus.

As usual, feel free to leave a comment below to share your experience.