Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7

The official Mender documentation explains how Mender works. This is a board-specific complement to the official documentation.

Board description

PICO-PI-IMX7 is the Starting Kit for Android Things

The i.MX 7Dual delivers high-performance processing for low-power requirements with a high degree of functional integration. The i.MX 7Dual features an advanced implementation of two ARM®Cortex®-A7 cores, which operate at speeds of up to 1.2 GHz, as well as the ARM® Cortex®-M4 core. The Pico variant is pin-compatible with the Intel® Edison for sensors and low-speed I/O, but also adds additional expansion possibilities for multimedia and connectivity, giving you cutting edge technology that can easily be expanded and implemented for IoT designs.

URL:https://shop.technexion.com/pico-pi-imx7.html

Test results

The Yocto Project releases in the table below have been tested by the Mender community. Please update it if you have tested this integration on other Yocto Project releases:

Yocto Project Build Runtime
sumo (2.5) :test_works: :test_works:
thud (2.6) :test_works: :test_works:
warrior (2.7) :test_works: :test_works:
zeus (3.0) :test_works: :test_works:
dunfell (3.1) :test_works: :test_works:

Build Means that the Yocto Project build using this Mender integration completes without errors and outputs images.

Runtime Means that Mender has been verified to work on the board. For U-Boot-based boards, the integration checklist has been verified.

Getting started

Prerequisites

  • A supported Linux distribution and dependencies installed on your workstation/laptop as described in the Yocto Mega Manual

  • NOTE. Instructions depend on which Yocto version you intend to use.

  • Google repo tool installed and in your PATH.

Configuring the build

Setup Yocto environment

Set the Yocto Project branch you are building for:

# set to your branch, make sure it is supported (see table above)
export BRANCH="dunfell"

Create a directory for your mender-nxp setup to live in and clone the

meta information.

mkdir mender-nxp && cd mender-nxp

Initialize repo manifest:

repo init -u https://github.com/mendersoftware/meta-mender-community \
-m meta-mender-nxp/scripts/manifest-nxp.xml \
-b ${BRANCH}

Fetch layers in manifest:

repo sync

Setup build environment

Initialize the build environment:

source setup-environment nxp

NOTE! You need to accept the Freescale EULA at ‘…/sources/meta-freescale/EULA’. Please read it and in case you accept it, add:

ACCEPT_FSL_EULA = "1" 

in your local.conf.

Building the image

You can now proceed with building an image:

MACHINE=imx7d-pico bitbake core-image-base

Replace core-image-base with your desired image target.

Using the build output

After a successful build, the images and build artifacts are placed in tmp/deploy/images/imx7d-pico/.

  • tmp/deploy/images/imx7d-pico/core-image-base-imx7d-pico.sdimg

  • tmp/deploy/images/imx7d-pico/core-image-base-imx7d-pico.mender

  • tmp/deploy/images/SPL

  • tmp/deploy/images/u-boot-dtb.img

The disk image (with .sdimg suffix) is used to provision the device storage for devices without Mender running already. Please proceed to the official documentation on provisioning a new device for steps to do this.

On the other hand, if you already have Mender running on your device and want to deploy a rootfs update using this build, you should use the Mender Artifact files, which have .mender suffix. You can either deploy this Artifact in managed mode with the Mender server (upload it under Releases in the server UI) or by using the Mender client standalone mode.

Flash instructions

Based on the output artifacts described above we need to flash the SPL, u-boot.imx and core-image-base-imx7d-pico.sdimg separately to fully provision an device and for it to work with Mender.

Required software on the host PC:

git clone https://github.com/boundarydevices/imx_usb_loader
cd imx_usb_loader && make

Loading U-Boot via USB Serial Download Protocol

Note: This method is convenient for development purposes.

If the eMMC has already a U-Boot flashed with DFU support then

the user can go to step 2 below in order to update U-Boot.

Put pico board in Serial Boot Loader mode (refer to the PICO-iMX7D Quick Start Guide

page 18 (https://www.nxp.com/docs/en/user-guide/PICO-IMX7D-USG.pdf)

Connect a USB to serial adapter between the host PC and pico.

Connect a USB cable between the OTG pico port and the host PC.

Open a terminal program such as minicom.

Copy SPL and u-boot.img to the imx_usb_loader folder.

Load the SPL binary via USB:

$ sudo ./imx_usb SPL

Load the u-boot.img binary via USB:

$ sudo ./imx_usb u-boot-dtb.img

Then U-Boot starts and its messages appear in the console program.

Use the default environment variables:

=> env default -f -a
=> saveenv

Flashing Image into the eMMC

From the u-boot :

 => ums 0 mmc 0 

From the host :

 sudo dd if=core-image-base-imx7d-pico.sdimg of=/dev/sdX bs=1M ; sudo sync

After flashing use ctrl-c to get out of ums.

Flashing U-Boot into the eMMC

Run the DFU agent so we can flash the new images using dfu-util tool:

=> dfu 0 mmc 0

Flash SPL and u-boot.img into the eMMC running the following commands on a PC:

$ sudo dfu-util -D SPL -a spl
$ sudo dfu-util -D u-boot-dtb.img -a u-boot

The following message should be seen on the U-Boot prompt after a successful upgrade:

#DOWNLOAD …​ OK 
Ctrl+C to exit …​

Remove power from the pico board.

Put pico board into normal boot mode.

Power up the board and the new updated U-Boot should boot from eMMC.

References


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4 Likes

Thanks for sharing and contributing. Actually shouldn’t name of board should be wandaboard (just renamed from other vendor?). I looked to both of then and they look very similar, anyway I can be wrong.

It’s a pleasure to contribute :blush:, wanderboard is one of the redistributors of the pico pi imx7

OK I see. Thanks for clarification.

14 posts were split to a new topic: Issues with Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7 Yocto environment

5 posts were split to a new topic: Device hangs during boot - Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7 - Yocto

6 posts were split to a new topic: Second CPU core missing - Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7 - Yocto

5 posts were split to a new topic: Bluetooth on Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7

A post was split to a new topic: License error on Technexion PICO-PI-IMX7

19 posts were split to a new topic: Problems with imx_usb on PICO-PI-IMX/

8 posts were split to a new topic: Issues with the PICO-PI-IMX7

@jorisoffouga, this has been a very popular board here. Any plans to update this to zeus or dunfell?

Hi,

I stay trying put ligpiod v.1.6 in my yocto (imx7d-pico) But I need hardknott. I stay trying copy and change sources/meta-openembedded/meta-oe
looking for github version 1.6 but got the following error (which can also be seen in the screen below);

ERROR: Layer openembedded-layer is not compatible with the core layer which only supports these series: dunfell (layer is compatible with hardknot

That’s expected. Mender currently support only dunfell. If you need a newer branch you’ll need to do some porting.

Drew

@drewmoseley

I have available time and I need this. Please give me the step by step for me to porting

Pls

Yocto dunfell have issue:

ERROR: u-boot-fslc-v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0 do_patch: Command Error: ‘quilt --quiltrc /home/neuberfran/mender-nxp5/build/tmp/work/imx7d_pico-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-fslc/v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/etc/quiltrc push’ exited with 0 Output:
Applying patch 0001-ARM-Pico-Pi-i.MX7D-support-to-mender.patch
patching file configs/pico-pi-imx7d_defconfig
Hunk #1 succeeded at 18 with fuzz 1 (offset 4 lines).
Hunk #2 FAILED at 35.
Hunk #3 FAILED at 64.
2 out of 3 hunks FAILED – rejects in file configs/pico-pi-imx7d_defconfig
patching file include/configs/pico-imx7d.h
Hunk #1 FAILED at 173.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 168 (offset -23 lines).
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED – rejects in file include/configs/pico-imx7d.h
Patch 0001-ARM-Pico-Pi-i.MX7D-support-to-mender.patch does not apply (enforce with -f)
ERROR: Logfile of failure stored in: /home/neuberfran/mender-nxp5/build/tmp/work/imx7d_pico-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-fslc/v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0/temp/log.do_patch.1506384
ERROR: Task (/home/neuberfran/mender-nxp5/build/…/sources/meta-freescale/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-fslc_2020.04.bb:do_patch) failed with exit code '1

@neuberfran Yes seems normal, this board has not been tested with dunfell release (see Test results section)

Yeah, unfortunately there is not a simple step-by-step for resolving patch failures. You will need to try to manually apply it using git am and patch and then inspect the reject files that show the patch hunks that cannot be applied. You will need to figure out how to make an equivalent change for the failed hunks in the current versions of the files.

@neuberfran FYI, I just open a PR for dunfell, see pico-pi-imx7d: bump to dunfell by texierp · Pull Request #232 · mendersoftware/meta-mender-community · GitHub

Also, the commit in [1] is also needed

[1] - u-boot-mender: Ignore case when checking variables in mender_Kconfig_… by texierp · Pull Request #1398 · mendersoftware/meta-mender · GitHub

@drewmoseley @mirzak @jorisoffouga @mirzak Issue in 27/june/2021 When I try dunfell =>

ERROR: u-boot-fslc-v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0 do_patch: Command Error: ‘quilt --quiltrc /home/neuberfran/mender-nxp3/build/tmp/work/imx7d_pico-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-fslc/v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0/recipe-sysroot-native/etc/quiltrc push’ exited with 0 Output:
Applying patch 0001-ARM-Pico-Pi-i.MX7D-support-to-mender.patch
patching file configs/pico-pi-imx7d_defconfig
Hunk #1 succeeded at 18 with fuzz 1 (offset 4 lines).
Hunk #2 FAILED at 35.
Hunk #3 FAILED at 64.
2 out of 3 hunks FAILED – rejects in file configs/pico-pi-imx7d_defconfig
patching file include/configs/pico-imx7d.h
Hunk #1 FAILED at 173.
Hunk #2 succeeded at 168 (offset -23 lines).
1 out of 2 hunks FAILED – rejects in file include/configs/pico-imx7d.h
Patch 0001-ARM-Pico-Pi-i.MX7D-support-to-mender.patch does not apply (enforce with -f)
ERROR: Logfile of failure stored in: /home/neuberfran/mender-nxp3/build/tmp/work/imx7d_pico-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-fslc/v2020.04+gitAUTOINC+88c58453be-r0/temp/log.do_patch.793240
ERROR: Task (/home/neuberfran/mender-nxp3/build/…/sources/meta-freescale/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-fslc_2020.04.bb:do_patch) failed with exit code '1