Posts by fs-support_PJ

fs-support_PJ · Mar 15th 2022

Note:

In this release module efusA9r2 is not supported. To use efusA9r2 you have to use release fsimx6-B2020.04.1.

New Buildroot Release fsimx6-B2020.04

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Mar 15th 2022

fsimx6 Buildroot Release B2020.04.1 (01.02.2022)

The minor release fsimx6-B2020.04.1 add support for new F&S module efusA9r2.

The following list shows the most noticable changes in this release in more detail since our last fsimx6 release fsimx6-B2020.04. Please note that the source code is partly also used for other platforms. This is why you will also find references to other CPU types and F&S boards here in the changelog. Some of these changes have already been part of other releases for other boards.

nbootimx6ul_47.bin (VN47) (01.02.2022)

Supported Boards: efusA9, efusA9r2, efusA9r2, armStoneA9, armStoneA9r2, PicoMODA9, NetDCUA9, QBlissA9, QBlissA9r2

NBoot for i.MX6 shares the source code with other i.MX6 CPU variants like i.MX6UL and i.MX6SX, therefore versions are counted consecutively.

[VN42]

0004288: Add support for eMMC

[VN43]

0004399: Add eMMC MBR and FAT support
0004400: Imporve dosfs and fix known bugs
0004401: Add support for boardconfig in eMMC boot partition
0004402: Add eMMC access from USB MSD
0004398: Add eMMC booting from fat in user partition
0004403: warn user if wrong nboot for boot device is downloaded

[VN44]

0004625: Add support for custom board

[VN45]

0004735: Change version naming for super secure variant
0004734: Use built-in randomizer
0004732: Correct DDR3 detection routine

[VN46]

0004803: Improve eMMC boot support
0004802: Add support for new board UL100

[VN47]

0005164: Add support for new board efusA9r2

u-boot-2018.03-fsimx6-B2020.04.1 (01.02.2022)

Supported boards: armStoneA9, armStoneA9r2, efusA9, efusA9r2, PicoMODA9, NetDCUA9, QBlissA9, QBlissA9r2, armStoneA5, CUBEA5, Cube2.0

Not tested: efusA9X, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX, CONT1, efusA7UL, PicoCOM1.2, PicoCoreMX6UL, GAR1, GAR2, CubeA7UL, NetDCUA5, PicoCOMA5, AGATEWAY, HGATEWAY

Add rx delay support for RTL8211F
Improve phy realtek LED setup
Add Ethernet support for efusA9r2
Add support for efusA9r2

linux-4.9.88-fsimx6-B2020.04.1 (01.02.2022)

Supported boards: armStoneA9, armStoneA9r2, efusA9, efusA9r2, PicoMODA9, NetDCUA9, QBlissA9, QBlissA9r2, armStoneA5, Cube2.0, CubeA5, AGATEWAY

Not tested: efusA9X, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX, PicoCoreMX7ULP, CONT1, efusA7UL, PicoCOM1.2, PicoCoreMX6UL, GAR1, GAR2, CubeA7UL, NetDCUA5, PicoCOMA5, HGATEWAY

Add rx delay support for RTL8211F
Add support for efusA9r2
Add phy fixup for efusA9r2

buildroot-2019.05.3-fsimx6-B2020.04.1 (31.01.2022)

Supported boards: armStoneA9, armStoneA9r2, efusA9, efusA9r2, PicoMODA9, NetDCUA9, QBlissA9, QBlissA9r2, armStoneA5, Cube2.0, CubeA5,

AGATEWAY

Not tested: efusA9X, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX, PicoCoreMX7ULP, CONT1, efusA7UL, PicoCOM1.2, PicoCoreMX6UL, GAR1, GAR2, CubeA7UL, NetDCUA5, PicoCOMA5, HGATEWAY

Add support for efusA9r2

Examples

no changes

Toolchain

no changes

Documentation

Update to version 4.3 of FSiMX6_FirstSteps_eng.pdf
Update to version 0.12 of LinuxOnFSBoards_eng.pdf

Please download the hardware documentation and GPIO Reference Cards directly from our website. Then you always have the newest version.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jan 11th 2022

Hi,

can you describe exactly what is your goal, and what´s your problem?

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Oct 18th 2021

Hi,

in the current Releases fsimx7ulp-B2019.12 and fsimx7ulp-Y2020.03 the display isn´t supported. Currently we have issues with uploading attachments. If this is fixed I will upload the pre-compiled images for release fsimx7ulp-B2019.12 and patches for the linux kernel.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Oct 13th 2021

Hi,

I´m not sure if there is a possibility to setup the mtdparts within device-tree. The virtual nand partitions are pre-configured in U-Boot source code. If you want to change something you have to take a look at U-Boot/include/configs/fsimx6.h.

But take attention the layout of N-Boot and U-Boot should not be changed, otherwise you may break your board.

Your F&S support team

fs-support_PJ · Aug 27th 2021

F&S i.MX6UL Buildroot Release fsimx6ul-B2019.11.1 (26.08.2021)

The minor release fsimx6ul-B2019.11.1 have all current boards in one release integrated.

In fsimx6ul-B2019.11.1 we don´t have the current boards PicoCoreMX6UL, PicoCoreMX6UL100 and PicoCOMA7 supported. These boards are now added in the fsimx6ul-B2019.11.1 release.
We also have added the support to use bootmedium eMMC in one configuration without having several defconfigs in U-Boot/Kernel/RootFS
Support for all current HW board revisions.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Aug 27th 2021

Hello

yes it is possible to use USB OTG port. By default USB OTG port is device in U-Boot. Therefore you have to set it to "host". You can do this via an environment variable.

setenv usb0mode host
saveenv

After reboot the system it should read the update.scr also from USB OTG port.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 16th 2021

Hello,

the output looks like there went something wrong while writing the rootfs. Do you have any log where I can see, how you´ve written the rootfs?

If not please try again writing the rootfs and provide the log please.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 15th 2021

No it will be a separate release which I guess will be independed from Linux BSP. The FreeRTOS BSP is based on the platform MCUXpresso from our supplier NXP, but I can´t tell you yet which version we will take.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 14th 2021

Hello,

normally we are providing a FreeRTOS BSP to support the usage of the Cortex-M4. Currently we haven´t done the implementation for i.MX8X, but I guess we will do the implementation in the near future.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 14th 2021

Hello,

yes this is roughly correct. We have done the implementation for Secure Boot on i.MX6. For further information please take a look at the following link.

https://fs-net.de/en/software/secureboot/

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 9th 2021

Hello,

In the current Yocto release the BT driver is not activated. This is a misconfiguration by F&S. Please activate the following drivers in the kernel configuration to use BT:

CONFIG_BT_MRVL=m
CONFIG_BT_MRVL_SDIO=m

After recompiling the system your BT interface “hci0” should be available with “hciconfig --all”. Sorry for the inconveniences.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Jul 9th 2021

Hello,

yes we are also planning a new release for i.MX6 boards. Probably it will be also based on Linux 5.4.70 / Buildroot 2021.02 / Toolchain 9.3. We don´t have an exact timetable but I guess it will be released during the year.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · May 5th 2021

Fix touch calibration for Distro X11

Under X11 there seems to be a problem if the touch gets calibrated by e.g. xinput_calibrator. The calibrated data will not be used so it appears that the calibration does not work. To solve this problem the library xf86-input-libinput should not be installed. In appendix there is a patch which remove xf86-input-libinput from XServer.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · May 5th 2021

Fix touch calibration for Distro X11

Under X11 there seems to be a problem if the touch gets calibrated by e.g. xinput_calibrator. The calibrated data will not be used so it appears that the calibration does not work. To solve this problem the library xf86-input-libinput should not be installed. In appendix there is a patch which remove xf86-input-libinput from XServer.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · May 5th 2021

Fix touch calibration for Distro X11

Under X11 there seems to be a problem if the touch gets calibrated by e.g. xinput_calibrator. The calibrated data will not be used so it appears that the calibration does not work. To solve this problem the library xf86-input-libinput should not be installed. In appendix there is a patch which remove xf86-input-libinput from XServer.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · May 5th 2021

Fix touch calibration for Distro X11

Under X11 there seems to be a problem if the touch gets calibrated by e.g. xinput_calibrator. The calibrated data will not be used so it appears that the calibration does not work. To solve this problem the library xf86-input-libinput should not be installed. In appendix there is a patch which remove xf86-input-libinput from XServer.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · May 4th 2021

Update to F_S_Development_Machine-Fedora_27_V1.4 (04.05.2021)

There is a new Virtual Machine with Fedora27 in your download section available (My F&S / Tools-Linux / Fedora27 / 64-bit (i.MX8)/F_S_Development_Machine-Fedora_27_V1.4.ova). Below are the changes compared to the previous version F_S_Development_Machine-Fedora_27_V1.3.ova.

New Content:

fsimx8mm-Y2021.04 (/home/developer/fsimx8mm-Y2021.04.tar.bz2)
Packages: flex, gitk, zlib-static.x86_64, glibc-static.x86_64
Add user developer to group vboxsf
Environment variable EDITOR set to "pluma" in /home/developer/.bashrc

Remove Content:

fsimx8mm-B020.08.pre (/home/developer/fsimx8mm-B2020.08-pre.tar.bz2)
fsimx8mm-Y2020.06 (/home/developer/fsimx8mm-Y2020.06.tar.bz2)
fsimx6* (/home/developer/fsimx6*)
freertos* (/home/developer/freertos*)
gcc-arm-none-eabi-8-2019-q3-update (/usr/local/arm/gcc-arm-none-eabi-8-2019-q3-update )

We have splitted up the virtual machines. One is for the 32-bit CPUs (i.MX6*/i.MX7*) it is currently version V1.2 and the other one for 64-bit CPUs (i.MX8*) V1.4. Thats why we have removed all i.MX6*/i.MX7* releases and the corresponding files from V1.4. We also removed the buildroot release for fsimx8mm because it does not support the current revision of the modules. In the future there will be a new Buildroot release for fsimx8mm architecture available.

Your F&S Support Team

fs-support_PJ · Apr 30th 2021

i.MX8M-Mini Linux Release Y2021.04 (Yocto)

This is a maintenance release for fsimx8mm. fsimx8mm is the software for all boards from F&S that are based on the i.MX8M-Mini Solo, Dual or Quad CPU from NXP (or i.MX8M-Mini for short). Currently this consists of the boards PicoCoreMX8MM. More boards may be added to this family in the future. All these boards can work with software that is created from this release package.

The release consists of two files:

fsimx8mm-Y2021.04.tar.bz2

This is the main release itself containing all sources, the binary images, the documentation, examples and the toolchain.

sdcard-fsimx8mm-Y2021.04.tar.bz2

If you copy the contents of this archive to an SD card, you can install our precompiled standard system in a very straightforward and comfortable way on the board. The SD card archive is meant for people who just want to try a release first without having to download the quite large main archive. Its content is also contained in the main release archive, so if you want to download the main archive anyway, you don't need to bother with the SD card archive.

These tar archives are compressed with bzip2. So to see the files, you first have to unpack the archives

Code

tar xvf fsimx8mm-Y2021.04.tar.bz2

This will create a directory fsimx8mm-Y2021.04 that contains all the files of the release.

Please read the file doc/FSiMX8MM_FirstSteps_eng.pdf. It describes the first steps when working with the board and gives references to further reading.

Release Notes for fsimx8mm-Y2021.04

Here are some highlights of this release.

1. New version numbering

We have changed the way how we name versions. In the past we had a version number made up of a major part m and a minor part n. Then we used Vm.n for Buildroot releases and Ym.n for Yocto releases. Release versions were counted individually for each CPU architecture. But then a "new" CPU type unfortunately had a smaller version number than an

"old" CPU, even if the code was coming from the same sources or was even newer. This caused some irritations and misunderstandings of what release is actually the newest.

So from now on we will use the year and month of the release instead, preceeded by a 'B' for Buildroot releases and a 'Y' for Yocto releases. For example the "B2019.08" of this release indicates a

Buildroot based release from August 2019.

2. New U-Boot 2018.03

We have a considerably newer U-Boot now. One of the main new features is display support, so basically U-Boot can now be used to show a splash screen.

U-Boot will also show more information about the CPU type now, for example temperature range, possible speed, etc. The command "clocks" will show much more information about internal clock rates. And USB storage devices are detected faster than before.

U-Boot has experienced quite a lot of internal restructuring. For example it now also supports configuration via a Kconfig menu, similar to Linux kernel and Buildroot. After configuration with

make fsimx8mm_defconfig

simply call

make menuconfig

to show the menu. There you can select and de-select entries or move to sub-menus.

Moving all configuration options from the previous header file to this menu is a long-term and still on-going process. So not all features are available in the menu, yet.

U-Boot is now compiled and running in THUMB mode. This saves space that is needed for all the display code.

3. New Linux kernel 5.4.70

The Linux kernel is now based on 5.4.70. By default, we are using the Image format of the kernel now.

Improvements and optimizations in memory management, for example better heap and page management (tmpfs, shmem), better protection against attacks by implementing stack, heap and memory randomization.
Performance optimizations for the network stack, like faster TCP connections, quick killing of hanging network links, more features for the packet filter (firewall), smaller latencies on WLAN.
Optimizations in block layer, for example better Device Mapper for LVM, improved parallel access to directories, more efficient access to SSDs, parallel access for NFS, kernel support for file copy, server-side copy for CIFS, NFS, XFS, support for hard discs with host-managed SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording).
Optimizations on file systems (NTRFS, EXT4, F2FS, NFS, XFS, Overlayfs, Ceph), new cluster filesystem Orangefs
Many improvements in graphics stack, like DRM (Direct Rendering Manager), new open source graphics driver etnaviv for Vivante graphics on i.MX CPUs (etnaviv = vivante backwards)
Better load balancing of processes to CPU cores, new cgroups v2, improved power and frequency handling, new cpufreq governor schedutil.
New GPIO infrastructure not using sysfs, supposed to be faster.
Support for USB SuperSpeedPlus (USB 3.1).
Many many new and improved drivers for WLAN chips, touch controllers, audio codecs, cameras, MMC/SD cards, etc.

Of course there are also many changes for other CPU types (like x86) and other graphics cores (like AMD, Nvidia, Intel) but these are not of interest here.

4. Yocto 3.0 (Zeus)

With this release systemd will be the default init system for the example-fus-images.

Systemd is a init system and service manager for Linux operating systems. It provides a system and service manager that runs as PID 1 and starts the rest of the system. Systemd provides aggressive parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of processes using Linux control groups,

maintains mount and automount points, and implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control logic. [Source: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/]

It is configured via the systemclt application.

Also the root file system will now be mounted as read-write by default. This can be changed to read-only when setting up the build enviroment via the fus-setup-release.sh script. See LinuxOnFSBoards_eng.pdf for a detailed description.

5. Documentation

In the past, the documentation that was included in the release package itself was often superseded by newer versions on our website. But people continued to use the outdated version of the release, causing unnecessary complications.

To avoid this, from now on only the software related documentation is directly included in the release and we have added a chapter to FSiMX8MM_FirstSteps_eng.pdf that contains direct links to the appropriate resources on our website. There you can download the newest versions of hardware documentations, schematics, layout files, certificates, accessories, add-ons, adapters and similar things.

The software documentation is completely reworked. The FSiMX8MM_FirstSteps_eng.pdf document now really only shows a basic introduction to the work with boards of the fsimx8mm architecture. And there is a new document LinuxOnFSBoards_eng.pdf that shows a more in-depth view of a Linux system in general and of the F&S versions of NBoot, U-Boot, Linux and Buildroot/Yocto in particular. This is still work in progress, some chapters are not fully done yet and will be revised in the future. Check our website from time to time to see if there is a newer version of this document.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following list shows the most noticable changes in this release in more detail since our last regular i.MX6 release. Please note that the source code is also used for other platforms. This is why you will also find references to other CPU types and F&S boards here in the changelog.

u-boot-2018.03-fsimx8mm-Y2021.04 (21.04.2021)