Boot2Qt Embedded Qt5 Image and Toolchain Zeus Release

Published on April 21, 2020

Table of Contents

  1. For the Impatient
  2. How to Burn
  3. Build procedure
  4. Display support
Nitrogen8M SBCNitrogen8M SOMNitrogen8M Mini SOMNitrogen8M Mini SBCNitrogen8M Mini SMARCNitrogen6X SBCNitrogen6 MAX SBCNitrogen6 SoloX SBCNitrogen6X SOMBD-SL-i.MX6 SBC

We are pleased to announce a new Boot2Qt Embedded Qt5 image and toolchain using Yocto 3.0, Zeus. Below you will find the download links for the images as well as detailed instructions for the build. You can view a demo of the image running on our Nitrogen8M Mini SOM here.

For the Impatient

You can download the Boot2Qt Yocto images from here:

You can download the Boot2Qt Linux Toolchains from here (refer below for instructions on building the Windows toolchain):

Instructions on how to use the QBSP Toolchain in your Qt application development can be found here. As usual, you'll need to register on our site and agree to the EULA because it contains NXP content.

How to Burn

You can program the SW to eMMC using the instructions below: For i-mx6 and i-mx7: programming-emmc-on-i-mx6 For i-mx8 programming-emmc-on-i-mx8 You can also program the SW to SD Card or USB Stick via zcat and dd under Linux: 

~$ sudo dd if=*boundary-image*.wic of=/dev/sdX bs=1M && sync
In addition, you can use the balenaEtcher utility to flash the eMMC, SD Card or USB stick via Windows or Linux: balenaEtcher

Build procedure

This image uses the zeus branch of the meta-boot2qt repo, which uses Qt version 5.15.0. To build the image, we recommend using a Docker Container so that you can build with a reproducible and stable build environment. Otherwise, you’ll need these packages installed as well as this repo tool that can be installed like this: 

~$ sudo apt-get install repo
Then create your build directory and clone the meta-boot2qt repo 
~$ mkdir ~/b2qt && cd b2qt
~/b2qt$ git clone git://code.qt.io/yocto/meta-boot2qt.git -b zeus
Next, run the b2qt-init-build-env script for your device. In this case we will use nitrogen8mm 
~/b2qt$ ./meta-boot2qt/b2qt-init-build-env init --device nitrogen8mm
Then, export that device to the MACHINE variable 
~/b2qt$ export MACHINE=nitrogen8mm
Source the setup-environment script. 
~/b2qt$ . ./setup-environment.sh
Finally, build the Boundary Boot2Qt Embedded Qt5 Image and Linux Toolchain ("boundary-b2qt-embedded-qt5-image" and "boundary-meta-toolchain-b2qt-embedded-qt5-sdk") 
~/b2qt$ bitbake boundary-meta-b2qt-embedded-qbsp
Note: You can just build the Qt5 image by running "bitbake boundary-b2qt-embedded-qt5-image"   To build a toolchain for Windows platforms add the following line to local.conf: SDKMACHINE = "i686-mingw32"   After some time this should build the same image as above. The image file will deploy to tmp/deploy/images/{MACHINE}/b2qt-embedded-qt5-image-{MACHINE}.wic. The Linux toolchain will deploy to tmp/deploy/qbsp/meta-b2qt-embedded-qbsp-x86_64-{MACHINE}-5.15.0.qbsp. The Windows toolchain will deploy to tmp/deploy/sdk/b2qt-i686-mingw32-meta-toolchain-b2qt-embedded-qt5-sdk-{MACHINE}.7z.  

Display support

Please make sure your platform includes the latest U-Boot:

This version of U-Boot supports the display configuration, allowing to use any of the following displays:

Note

that we've noticed that the NXP HDMI driver is picky when it comes to custom display timings (sometimes refuses to set the clock). So if you are experiencing any issue with HDMI, please try entering the following commands in U-Boot in order to force the use of standard timings: 

=> setenv cmd_custom 'setenv bootargs $bootargs drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware=HDMI-A-1:edid/1280x720.bin'
=> saveenv
If you have any issues, please email support@boundarydevices.com