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  • Author Author: Former Member
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sama5d3 xplained violet intro

Former Member
Former Member

Hey,

 

This is my introduction blog post on using the Atmel sama5d3-xplained development board, I was kindly given the opportunity to roadtest the device along with a few other bits and bobs. http://www.element14.com/community/roadTests/1348

 

I didn't have a great deal of time when the unit first arrived to work on it much and just seemed to go around in circles a little bit with guides and documents that didn't really seem to work for me, I've just managed to get some time and actually made some headway! so I'm going to blog about my progress and hopefully save other people time and headscratching trying to get up and running with it.

 

At first I was going to cross compile C programs to run on it along with the poky yocto linux distribution, but alas cannot seem to get a crosscompiler that works for it. I've followed 3 separate guides and all of them have proven fruitless, the only hope seems to be copying codesourcery runtime libraries and files over but Id rather look for another way in, I've spent nearly 6 hours on installing, building, making and cross compiling files only for them to not run on the target. I need another solution:

 

PYTHON!!!!!

 

Yay! It suddenly came to me... I've never before used Python, but am led to believe it's quite a basic language and I should be able to pick it up. So plugging in my Xplained, accessing it through ssh, I just typed python at the root command prompt and "Hurray!" something that works straight out of the box!! The python live interpreter starts with 3 prompts >>>

 

I did a quick hello world etc.. but now needed to use it to do some real work, so it's back to the terminal to have a poke about with the linux environment and see what I can fiddle with!

 

My current system setup is the running the demo_linux_nandflash_pda4 nand image, there is a guide on how to install it here http://www.atmel.com/Images/Atmel-42328-Using-SAM-BA-for-Linux-on-SAMA5D3-Xplained_Training-Manual_AN8995.pdf (thanks to Greg Fenton for providing the link)

 

 

Coming up:

 

- ssh into the sama5d3 xplained through network cable

- mounting and using the SD card slot

- using gpio's using bash through the terminal

- transferring what we know about gpio control into python libraries

 

once these blogs are finished, I'll have a better idea of the direction to move in with more guides

  • in reply to Former Member

    I hate this board's threading display, it gets thinner and thinner image

     

    I am still working on it, I had it /almost/ working yesterday after lots of random changes so today I have gone back to the default image and am trying the changes one by one.

     

    It's definitely doable, I just have to get the right command sequence to get it working.

  • Former Member
    Former Member in reply to gregoryfenton

    have you had any luck? I have a vested interest image there's a python library called pygame that can be installed on debian and offers full graphical packages, and optional gui components for lots of display modes including linux framebuffer support. The raspberry pi has it installed already which is a big reason people can do many amazing things with LCD's. The poky linux on the Xplained doesn't, but if it had debian with framebuffer support it should be possible to install the version for the raspberry pi image

     

    Apart from that, the only way to realistically use the framebuffer with python that i've found so far is to create a double buffer in software using arrays and swap that to the screen with dd. I think that it's probably going to be quite a slow interface without a compiled c library though.

  • in reply to Former Member

    I have it built and fitting in a 2GB image file with plenty of space to spare, just need to figure out this annoying framebuffer issue.

     

    These boards automatically boot from an SD card if one is present.

  • Former Member
    Former Member in reply to gregoryfenton

    Fingers crossed, a Debian environment sounds great! What kind of size footprint are you expecting it to have?

     

    Good luck

  • Great start image

     

    I am (fingers crossed) almost at the stage where the framebuffer will work in a "normal" linux (Debian), in fact I have chose to read this post while I relax for a few minutes after a mammoth compiling session lasting many hours.

     

    Carry on with the Python route, whether my attempts pay off or not the code you write will by its very nature be able to work either in Debian or Yocto.

     

    Greg