Posts by fs-support_TK

  • New F&S Development Machine - Fedora36-arm32

    F&S Development Machine with Fedora 36 for arm32 V1.1

    There is a new Virtual Machine with Fedora36 in your download section available (My F&S / Tools-Linux /VirtualMachines/Fedora36/32-bit (i.MX6)/ F_S_Development_Machine-Fedora_36-arm32_V1.1.ova). The structure of the virtual machine is listed below.


    Content:

    • fsimx6ul-B2023.12 (/home/developer/fsimx6ul-B2023.12)
    • fsimx6sx-B2024.01 (/home/developer/fsimx6sx-B2024.01)

    New Content:

    • fsimx6sx-B2024.01 (/home/developer/fsimx6sx-B2024.01)

    Your F&S Support Team

  • F&S i.MX6SX Buildroot Release 2024.01 (fsimx6sx-B2024.01)

    Please see the file


    doc/FSiMX6SX_FirstSteps_eng.pdf


    for a description of how everything is installed and used. This doc sub-directory also contains other documentation, for example about the hardware of the boards and the starter kits.


    This is a major release for all F&S boards and modules based on the i.MX6-SoloX CPUs from NXP.
    Currently these are the modules efusA9X, efusA9Xr2, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX. 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.
    Please note that Buildroot releases use a 'Y' for the version number.The version counting is independent form other releases.


    The release consists of the following files and directories:


    • Readme.txt Release notes (this text)
    • setup-buildroot Script to download and install the Buildroot release
    • binaries/ Precompiled images (full names)
    • sdcard/ Precompiled images (names as expected by install script)
    • doc/ Hardware and software manuals, schematics

    Here are some highlights of this release.


    1. New Linux Kernel 5.15.131

    The Linux kernel is now based on 5.15.131

    • New optimizations for EXT4.
    • OverlayFS has better performance and copying up more attributes.
    • Many graphics improvements among the DRM/KMS drivers.
    • Linux 5.15 I/O can achieve up to ~3.5M IOPS per-core.
    • The PREEMPT_RT locking code was merged as a big step forward towards
      getting the real-time (RT) patches upstreamed in the Linux kernel.
    • Various scheduler improvements.
    • Various power management improvements.
    • Opt-in L1 data cache flushing on context switching as a security
      feature for the paranoid and other specialized conditions.
    • Improvements around compile-time and run-time detection of buffer overflows.
    • Additional protection around side channel attacks via clearing used registers
      prior to returning, making use of the compiler-side support.

    (https://www.phoronix.com/review/linux-515-features)

    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.


    2. New bootloader U-Boot 2021.04

    The U-Boot is now based on 2021.04.

    Additional to the security and feature updates of the mainline U-Boot, there have been many updates on the fsimage command and the general layout of the bootloaders in the flash memory.


    3. New Buildroot version 2023.02.6

    Updating Buildroot to Version 2023.02.6.
    This provides many new package versions like Weston 10.0.3, imx-gpu-viv 6.4.3.p4.8 or Busybox 1.36.1. There is also a package for QT6.3 available, but it currently doesn't support the examples and crosscompiled qmake, so it is reather experimental in this release.


    4. Improved Image versioning

    The exact versions of Nboot, U-Boot and Linux Kernel will now be printed during the boot process.

    If the image is build with an tagged commit the tag name will be printed.
    If the commit is not tagged, the git commits hash will be printed.

    If the image is based on an uncommitted git, the flag "-dirty" will be added to the last commits name.


    We use an own Linux version string that will be printed additionally to the mainline Linux version. This way modules that are built for the same Linux

    version with just some slight changes, can still be loaded without rebuilding the whole rootfile system.


    Linux device trees are also versioned with the current version of the linux git.


    You can check the versions of the different components at runtime at /sys/bdinfo/


    5. New Release concept over github

    We now provide our Linux gits over github at https://github.com/FSEmbedded.
    All release and pre-release states will be pushed here. For now, we will not push each single commit to github.


    Also the release sources are not added to the release tar anymore, but will be downloaded from github during the setup process.


    The versions of the different gits of a release can be looked up in the fs-release-manifest.xml file in the release tar directory.


    Knwon Issues:


    1. The Slilex Wlan/Bluetooth Chip on the efusmx6sx(r2) is not supported.

    There is currently no driver avaialble for the Linux Kernel 5.15. For Silex WLAN chip support, please use the release fsimx6sx-B2019.11.1.

    For basic WLAN evaluation, the mainline ath10 driver can be used, but this is highly experimental. Pleas contact F&S if you want to test this.


    =========================================================================


    The following list shows the most noticeable changes in this release in more detail since our last release for this platform.
    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 change log.


    nbootimx6sx_51.bin (VN51)

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

    Supported boards: efusA9X, efusA9Xr2, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX


    [VN49]

    • 0005378: [NBoot] Ad9 support for new boards efusA9Xr2, armStoneA9R3, armStoneA9r4, PicoCoreMX6SXr2

    [VN50]

    • 0005541: [NBoot] NAND dump does not work
    • 0005540: [NBoot] Memory errors on armStoneA9
    • 0005542: [NBoot] Board revision is wrong on armStoneA9

    [VN51]

    • 0005951: [NBoot] Add new board NetDCUA7
    • 0005950: [NBoot] Add secure boot for UL with MMC

    u-boot-2021.04-fsimx6sx-2024.01

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

    Supported boards: efusA9X, efusA9Xr2, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX

    • Update to NXP u-boot-201.04
    • Improve Uboot versioning
    • Fix bootaux command
    • Fix fat_size for files bigger than 2GB
    • Drop board revision from BOARD-CFG names
    • addfsheader.sh: Check for crc32 and xxd before using them
    • Remove sha256 support

    linux-5.15.71-fsimx6sx-2024.01

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

    Supported boards: efusA9X, efusA9Xr2, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX

    • Update to NXP Linux Version lf-5.15.71-2.2.1
    • Switch to FSL_ASOC_CARD sound driver for sgtl5000
    • Add F&S Versioning for kernel and device tree
    • Improve uart dma support
    • Add leds-pca963x-fus driver and revert the original to the mainline driver
    • Enable power key support for PicoCore boards
    • Improve SDIO stability for Azurewave wlan chips
    • Add support to disable pin controls nodes in the device tree
    • Apply patches from mainline linux-5.15.131
    • Fix Realtek Ethernet Phy Bug in Low Power Mode
    • Fix backlight flicker for inverted pwm
    • Improve auxiliary_core driver
    • Fix picocoma9x rtscts pad settings
    • PCOMA9X: Increase CMA size to 200MB

    buildroot-fsimx6sx-2024.01

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

    Supported boards: efusA9X, efusA9Xr2, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX

    • Update fsimx6sx to Buildroot 2023.02.6
    • Update fsimx6sx IMX specific packages to NXP Yocto version lf-5.15.71-2.2.1
    • Add F&S Kernel and U-Boot versioning
    • Add F&S psplash bootscreen
    • Add support for weston fbdev-backend.

    Examples

    --------

    (no changes)


    Toolchain

    ---------

    fs-toolchain-11.2-armv7ahf.tar.bz2 for Linux


    Documentation

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

    • Update to version 2.3 of FSiMX6SX_FirstSteps_eng.pdf
    • Update to version 0.22 of LinuxOnFSBoards_eng.pdf

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

  • F&S i.MX8MP FreeRTOS Release V2022.07.1

    F&S i.MX8MP FreeRTOS Release V2022.07.1

    We have uploaded a new FreeRTOS version for all boards and modules based on the i.MX8MP CPU to our server, i.e. the fsimx8mp architecture: PicoCoreMX8MP. This release is running on all platforms of this architecture at the same time.


    This is a maintenance release. The release consists of the following file:


    freertos-fsimx8mp-V2022.07.1.tar.bz2

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


    This tar archive is compressed with bzip2. So to see the files, you first have to unpack the archives

    Code
    1. tar xvf freertos-fsimx8mp-V2022.07.1.tar.bz2

    This will create a directory freertos-fsimx8mp-V2022.07.1 that contains all the files of the release.


    For any questions regarding the usage of the examples please refer to the document doc/FreeRTOS_BSP_iMX8MP_on_FS_Boards.pdf. It lists the purpose of all files and shows how to install and use everything.

    Additionally we added a porting_readme.txt file located in the not_tested directory. This file contains brief information about the examples which are currently not portable.


    Release Notes freertos-fsimx8mp-V2022.07.1


    ================================================================================


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



    freertos-sdk-2.10.0-fsimx8mp-V2022.07.1 (28.07.2021)

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

    Supported boards: PicoCoreMX8MP

    Not tested: efusA9X, PicoCOMA9X, PicoCoreMX6SX, PicoCoreMX7ULP, PicoCoreMX8MM


    - [fsimx8mp]: Removed example cmsis_driver_examples/uart/smda_transfer

    - [fsimx8mp]: Fix warnings by the canfd and flexcan examples

    - [fsimx8mp]: Fix warnings of canfd and flexcan examples



    Toolchain


    - new toolchain gcc-arm-none-eabi-9-2020-q2-update-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2



    Documentation


    - Updated version 1.2 of FreeRTOS_BSP_iMX8MP_on_FS_Boards.pdf



    Your F&S Support Team