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Enchanted Objects: Let's work together to tame the ATMEL SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra kit

Jan Cumps

Pinging my fellow enchanted_objects participants

, , , , , tanah, christiann22, JokerZ, , , , , , doca,

to work together on getting us to the point where we can build and run code for the The specified item was not found. SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra .

 

This board is rather tough to crack. It would be great if we could all share the small steps that work here.

If you get one step further than anyone else, let's document our progress here.

It would be great to document it in reproducible steps.

 

I tried to create a Document, but that's not available in this section of the element14 website. So it's a Discussion.

 

Loading images, binaries and Pre-compiled Demos

has created a step by step guide to load binaries to the board using SAM-BA.

The embedded video is easy to following along step-by-step.

SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - Tips and Tricks #1 - Getting Displays up and Running

SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - Tips and Tricks #2 - Using the built in IO and external devices

 

JokerZ compiled an Ubuntu 14.x; including the toolchain and a mesage queue service loaded to the board.

The image he created is available from his blog post:

SAMA5D4 and my Ubuntu experience. Blog Post #2 - A place in the cloud

 

documentation on getting TCP/IP, SSH and SCP running using ' technique:

Review 5: Atmel SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - TCP/IP running

Review 6: Atmel SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - LINUX Distro with SSH support

 

documentation on transfering files to the linux distro over the USB port (for those cases where your board isn't connected to the network):

Sending Files to SAMA5D4 over USB


 

 

Tool Chain

JokerZ compiled an Ubuntu 14.x; and loaded the toolchain on the board itself using apt-get.

SAMA5D4 and my Ubuntu experience. Blog Post #2 - A place in the cloud

 

installed a tool chain that compiles the bare metal libraries from SAMA5D4 Software Package.

Review 2: Atmel SMART SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - Building the Libraries from Source

 

cross-compiled a C++ program from source and executed it on linux:

Run my own C++ Program on the SAMA5D4



 

TODO
  • Build, Load and Run any example  from source
  • Build, Load and Run an OS from source
  • Make an example that talks to the peripherals (IO, ADC, protocols)
  • Install a software package
  • Debug your application
  • Whatever we come up with during the challenge
Parents

  • Just a really quick note here as it is after 2:30am

     

    I finally managed to get the SAMA5D4 to boot with an ubuntu kernel :-)  Version is 14.04

     

    This includes a base ubuntu root file structure and I am currently running apt-get update.

    Ok that worked and it updated its core files.

     

    Just trying a sudo apt-get install ruby

    and it also appears to be working.. finally. :-)

     

    What I will try and do tomorrow, is make an image of the SD card and make it available for download.

    I'll also compile some notes on exactly what I did to get it functional.

  • in reply to Former Member

    Sorry, it was the Unix, it was quite late when. I posted and I was very tired. I did spend a little while trying to upload new firmware, but I had some issues getting it to run properly and eventually gave up.

  • in reply to kidiccurus

    We've got a distro running at the moment that supports SSH for terminal access, HTTP server and SCP for file transfer.

    I'll try to wrap up the details, but in essence it's the HTMI distro that describes in his video from SAMA5D4 Xplained Ultra - Tips and Tricks #1 - Getting Displays up and Running

     

    I think that with these protocools up and running, and the cross-compilation chain working, we'll be able to build programs, load them to the linux distro and execute them on the board.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    I am not sure that distro with HDMI opens up the display as much as we'd like it to.

    I was able to print random garbage to the HDMI screen today, but my attempts at loading graphics of any type

    weren't a success.  I drilled in further and tried both xwindows and kde and had some limited success.

    I actually got the OS to display visually but then ran into trouble where my keyboard and mouse were non

    responsive.  Either I am not running enough power through the board (I am just leeching off my USB port in my laptop).

    Or there are some config elements I was missing, nothing I did though would make it recognize and react to the mouse or keyboard

    in KDE.

     

    Getting it to act as a console display was a non event.

    It's basically a frame buffer, so it wants to be addressed as a framebuffer and not as a TTY or virtual TTY device.

    Which makes me sad.

     

    I did manage to install a native GCC toolchain onto the board and was able to do some coding there.

    Right now I am writing out an image file of my 8Gb Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTD for Sama5d4.

     

    Once I figure out where to upload it, I'll post a link. Zipped its about 195Mb. It's an image for an 8Gb microSD card, I've got a 16Gb one

    here as well in case anyone is interested. Ok the upload is done for the 8Gb image.

     

    You can grab the zip file from dropbox.

    Burn the image to your microSD card using Windows Image Writer or similar.

    Once you boot it up, you can see the default login name and password.

    Once into the shell you should  sudo apt-get update

     

    After that you are pretty much free to install your favourite tools.

    try sudo apt-get install htop

     

    It's a nicer version of top. :-)

  • in reply to Former Member

    JokerZ, if you create a blog with the steps, I'll link to it at the top of this thread.

  • in reply to Former Member

    downloading it now, i will try as soon as I can

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thank you for the help, I think we all have been working on trying to get this up and running. It is great that our group works together like this and share knowledge. Well done!!!

  • in reply to Former Member

    I think I am close to using the HDMI under various distros. The key as Ralph JokerZ said, it is a frame buffer and not a TTY. There are demos using QT and I am looking inside for clues.

    Clem

    PS I am using what you sent in dropbox. Looking at the framebuffer and trying to send TTYS1 to it.

  • in reply to clem57

    Yeah Ralph. :-)

    I actually got kde to load up (well KDM I think it was) and got it to display, but I did have some keyboard and mouse issues.

    I might revisit it this week now that i have a few new microSD cards. I can run the OS in various states across a few different cards and see what works as far as

    the display goes.  It's definitely a nice board to work with, especially with Ubuntu on it.

    I got mono running on it yesterday. Compiled a C# app and then transferred the program over to a Windows machine and had it successfully execute.

    For me, having a tool chain on the device I am working with is just awesome. GCC installs perfectly after I 'Ubuntu'ed' the machine.

     

    Did anyone try the image I made over the weekend?

  • in reply to clem57

    To send TTYS1 output to /dev/fb0 it is going to require some work.

    It's not a simple matter as a redirection, as you need to manually build the 'image' that gets sent to the frame buffer.

     

    This of course could be done, but would require some intermediary software in between.

     

    Try this from the unix shell cat /dev/urandom > /dev/fb0

    You should get a lovely coloured display on the HDMI output.

    You will need to be using an OS install where the framebuffer is enabled and I found to make

    it work I had to reset the HDMI, usually by unplugging and plugging the cable back in again.

     

    I was going to investigate some of those software libraries I have seen around which control bit mapped

    LCD's. They might hold some ideas about how to address the FB via graphics libraries. Most of them revolve around

    I2C or 4/8 bit data transfers vs writing data to /dev/fb0  but again could be handy for clues as to how to solve the issue

    of displaying material.

     

    I don't actually need the HDMI for my project, but its kind of fun to drill into how the board works and what I can make it do. image

     

    Rob

  • in reply to Former Member

    Here is my fbset:

    ubuntu@arm:~$ fbset -i

     

     

    mode "1024x768"

        geometry 1024 768 1024 768 24

        timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

        accel true

        rgba 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0

    endmode

     

     

    Frame buffer device information:

        Name        :

        Address     : 0x3e900000

        Size        : 2359296

        Type        : PACKED PIXELS

        Visual      : TRUECOLOR

        XPanStep    : 1

        YPanStep    : 1

        YWrapStep   : 0

        LineLength  : 3072

        Accelerator : No

     

    I get Mode not support on display. Can I change this to ??? to avoid the problem?

    Thanks,

    Clem

Reply
  • in reply to Former Member

    Here is my fbset:

    ubuntu@arm:~$ fbset -i

     

     

    mode "1024x768"

        geometry 1024 768 1024 768 24

        timings 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

        accel true

        rgba 8/16,8/8,8/0,0/0

    endmode

     

     

    Frame buffer device information:

        Name        :

        Address     : 0x3e900000

        Size        : 2359296

        Type        : PACKED PIXELS

        Visual      : TRUECOLOR

        XPanStep    : 1

        YPanStep    : 1

        YWrapStep   : 0

        LineLength  : 3072

        Accelerator : No

     

    I get Mode not support on display. Can I change this to ??? to avoid the problem?

    Thanks,

    Clem

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