Yocto Hardknott Release for i.MX6 Platforms

Published on September 23, 2021

Table of Contents

  1. For the Impatient
  2. How to Burn
  3. Build procedure
  4. Features list
  5. GPU acceleration
  6. Camera input
  7. VPU decoding
  8. VPU encoding
  9. Ethernet
  10. Wi-Fi
  11. Bluetooth
  12. CAN
Nitrogen6X SBCNitrogen6 MAX SBCNitrogen6 SoloX SBCNitrogen6X SOMBD-SL-i.MX6 SBC

We are pleased to announce a new Yocto release Hardknott for our Nitrogen6 family of SBCs and SOMs based on i.MX6 processors. This release includes our latest 5.10 kernel. Below you will find download links for the images as well as detailed instructions for building including a features set.

For the Impatient

You can download the Yocto images from 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: programming-emmc-on-i-mx-platforms You can also program the SW to SD Card or USB Stick via zcat and dd under Linux: 

~$ zcat *boundary-image*.wic.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

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 hardknott branch of our boundary-bsp-platform repository. 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 initialize everything. 

~$ mkdir ~/hardknott && cd hardknott
~/hardknott$ repo init -u https://github.com/boundarydevices/boundary-bsp-platform -b hardknott
~/hardknott$ repo sync

Next, setup the environment for building. For this image we will be building our boundary-xwayland distro for the target machine

~/hardknott$ MACHINE= DISTRO=boundary-xwayland . setup-environment build

Now bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full which is equivalent to fsl-image-multimedia-full with Boundary-specific packages added such as BD-SDMAC support. 

~/hardknott/build$ bitbake boundary-image-multimedia-full

After some time this should build the same image as above, with the layers being at commits as per the time when repo sync was executed. If you are interested in each project revision at the time of the build, you can find a frozen manifest for those images here. The image file will deploy to tmp/deploy/images/{MACHINE}/boundary-image-multimedia-full-{MACHINE}.wic.gz.

Features list

The image built above contains the following components:

  • Linux kernel 5.10.x_2.0.0
  • U-Boot 2020.10
  • Weston 9.0.0 for i.MX
  • GStreamer1.0 1.18.4
  • GPU Vivante libraries 6.4.3p1.4
  • VPU libraries 5.4.39.3
  • qcacld-lea-2.0 Wi-Fi driver for BD-SDMAC
  • BlueZ 5.56 with support for BD-SDMAC

The next sub-sections will describe how to test most features.

GPU acceleration

As usual, in order to test the GPU you can use the example apps provided by Vivante: 

root@:~# /opt/imx-gpu-sdk/GLES2/Blur/GLES2.Blur_Wayland -d

Camera input

Camera MIPI-CSI input can be checked using our OV5640_5MP_MIPI with GStreamer: 

root@:~# gst-launch-1.0 imxv4l2videosrc device=/dev/video1 ! autovideosink;

nitrogen8m-camera

VPU decoding

Here is an example using GPlay tool: 

root@:~# wget http://linode.boundarydevices.com/videos/Hobbit-1080p.mov
root@:~# gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///home/root/Hobbit-1080p.mov video-sink=imxipuvideosink

VPU encoding

Here is an example using gstreamer: 

root@:~# gst-launch-1.0 imxv4l2videosrc device=/dev/video1 ! imxvpuenc_h264 bitrate=10000 ! filesink location=test.mp4

Ethernet

Once the eth0 interface is up, you can use iperf3 to check Ethernet performances: 

root@:~# iperf3 -c 192.168.1.60                                                                                                                         
Connecting to host 192.168.1.60, port 5201
[  5] local 192.168.1.13 port 32880 connected to 192.168.1.60 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec  1.09 GBytes   938 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.04  sec  1.09 GBytes   932 Mbits/sec                  receiver

Wi-Fi

Same goes for the Wi-Fi that can be tested just as easily: 

root@:~# nmcli d wifi connect  password 
root@:~# iw wlan0 link
Connected to a4:3e:51:08:54:f6 (on wlan0)
        SSID: Jabu_5GHz
        freq: 5240
        RX: 3243 bytes (31 packets)
        TX: 9117 bytes (48 packets)
        signal: -79 dBm
        tx bitrate: 15.0 MBit/s MCS 0 40MHz short GI
root@:~# ping google.com -Iwlan0                                                                                                                       
PING google.com (216.58.198.206): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 216.58.198.206: seq=0 ttl=55 time=3.470 ms
...

Bluetooth

For products with a Silex bluetooth module, you'll be able to connect using our handy silex-uart script with the following commands: 

root@:~# /usr/share/silex-uart/silex-uart.sh start
Starting silex-uart
rfkill on/off cycle.
silex found
root@:~# hciconfig hci0 up
root@:~# hcitool scan
Scanning ...
11:22:DE:AD:BE:EF    Some Device

CAN

CAN is supported on Nitrogen6 MAX. You'll be able to bring up the interface using these commands: 
root@:~# ip link set can0 up type can bitrate 500000

From this point, you can use commands such as cansend and candump to send or display messages on the bus respectively.   If you have any issues, please email support@boundarydevices.com