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How can i flash using Linux?

Former Member

Hi,

 

there is no method described in the manual. I guess many (most?) people interested in an open

hardware development device are using linux.

 

I hope there are any tools available and the documentation can be extended.

 

Thanks

 

Steffen

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  • 0

    Remember that the RIoT board is targeted specifically for Android development, not mainline linux.

     

    It's also not a truly open hardware design as the actual CAD files are not provided. There are Gerbers available now which allow you to produce an exact copy, but the Mentor/KiCad/Eagle/whatever source files are not available so you can't easily modify it.

    There are better choices if you want an open hardware board, for eaxmple the Olimex OLinuXino boards.

     

    However, the user manual has section 5 on how to build linux kernel images and you'll find a linux download on this page RIoTboard

     

    image

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  • 0

    Remember that the RIoT board is targeted specifically for Android development, not mainline linux.

     

    It's also not a truly open hardware design as the actual CAD files are not provided. There are Gerbers available now which allow you to produce an exact copy, but the Mentor/KiCad/Eagle/whatever source files are not available so you can't easily modify it.

    There are better choices if you want an open hardware board, for eaxmple the Olimex OLinuXino boards.

     

    However, the user manual has section 5 on how to build linux kernel images and you'll find a linux download on this page RIoTboard

     

    image

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  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    actually, I take it back.. the gerbers download that appeared the other week isn't really gerbers at all, it's PDFs of the gerbers and as such totally useless for building your own...

     

    The PDFs are of course helpful for examining the design, finding out where to cut tracks and such like, but nothing more. So even less of an open hardware design that I was thinking image

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Thanks for the reply. You are right - it's maybe not that open.

     

    I have seen the linux image. My problem is, that i don't see a way to upload it to the riotboards eMMc. The mfg tool is not

    running on my linux desktop.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    I don't have a board, but can't you just write it to an SD card and boot from that ?  Assuming the sizes work out it's probably possible to just dd the image to the eMMC afterwards.

     

    There's no real requirement for the mfgtools, but if you're stuck on doing it that way, you can try https://github.com/boundarydevices/imx_usb_loader which is what's used for other i.MX6 boards. I've used it successfully on sabre-lite

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    We will be uploading the actual gerbers very soon - and it will be truly open source.

     

    Based on some of the community feedback, we are also looking into CAD library support with other tools.

     

    Thanks

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    AFAIK you can only boot Linux from the internal eMMC — not from the external.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    James Carruthers wrote:

     

    AFAIK you can only boot Linux from the internal eMMC — not from the external.

    Where did you get that information ?

    The user manual says otherwise (and other i.MX6 systems can boot from varying places)

    image

    So once you set the boot switches to SD you can boot whatever you like from SD.

  • 0 in reply to vandana

    vandana wrote:

     

    We will be uploading the actual gerbers very soon - and it will be truly open source.

     

    Based on some of the community feedback, we are also looking into CAD library support with other tools.

    Hi Vandana, that's very good to hear!

     

    I don't know what tools were used to produce the RIoT, but Eagle would seem to be a good choice of format for e14 to release the files in image

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

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    It's on Page 44 of the UM that it mentions that Linux currently only boots from eMMC. Though maybe that means eventually it'll have an SD option. As you stated, the chip can boot from either interface, so it seems to be a software configuration thing for Linux.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    anthony_h wrote:

     

    It's on Page 44 of the UM that it mentions that Linux currently only boots from eMMC.

    Unfortunately that's so vague as to be pointless..  From a Linux point of view eMMC and SD are identical as they use the same driver. If u-boot can load android from eMMC there's no reason to believe it can't load Linux - since android is based on a linux kernel.

    The wording seems strange too "Currently the Linux system on the RIoTboard supports only booting from the eMMC" but as we all know it arrives with Android installed, so 'currently' there is no linux on the board... If there was, it wouldn't be an issue image

     

    I'm wondering if what it really means is that the ancient 3.0.35 based image from the download page is brain-damaged enough that it's incapable of doing so.  In a different thread there's a devicetree file for the 3.13 kernel which should effectively remove any kernel based obstacles. The only remaining problem would be if u-boot or the ubuntu image have hard-coded something and any of those should be fixable.

     

    It's a pity there's no SPI rom like the Sabre-Lite. A decent version of u-boot in SPI essentially makes it possible to easily boot from anywhere.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    anthony_h wrote:

     

    It's on Page 44 of the UM that it mentions that Linux currently only boots from eMMC.

    My board arrived at the weekend, so I can now refute the claim made in the UM for certain. Exactly what the manual is referring to in that section on p44 isn't clear, what is clear is that it's either misleading or just plain wrong.

     

    I setup a uSD card today with mainline u-boot (0b2da7e209f4110b7c81d578336a10330e4a4404 from 28th March with the patches mentioned here http://www.element14.com/community/thread/32560/l/mainline-u-boot ) and a 3.14 kernel with madewish patches from http://www.element14.com/community/thread/31675?start=16&tstart=0 and have it booting directly from uSD without problem.

     

    The user manual is also particularly unhelpful, Table 4-3 on page 46 shows "Boot Switch Configuration - SD", technically correct but useless information... The SoC has four SD interfaces, the table shows the config to boot from the full-size SD slot at J6 on the underside of the board. To boot from the uSD (J7 on the top of the board) you have to set D7 On, D8 Off. You'll want to grab IMX6SDLRM from Documentation to work out exactly what the switches do. Start with Chapter 8..