Build a Raspberry Pi 2 Minimal Image with The Yocto Project

The Yocto Project is a build system that allows developers to make custom Linux distributions matching their exact needs. I’ve already shown how to build a 12MB Compressed image for the Raspberry Pi with Yocto, but the Raspberry Pi 2 has recently been added to the project, so I’ve tried to build it too in a machine running Ubuntu 14.04. I’ll use poky since it’s the default, but you could also build the system for Angstrom or without distributions (OpenEmbedded Core only). The steps to get the code is just the same as for the Raspberry Pi:

You just need to checkout master, and not any branch (like dizzy) since R-Pi 2 is not yet supported in any release. Initialize some environment variables and the build directory:

Now edit conf/local.conf with vim or nano to set the machine to raspberrypi2 instead of qemux86:

There are more Raspberry […]

Embedded Linux Conference 2015 Schedule – IoT, Cars, and Drones

Embedded Linux Conference 2015 will take place in San Jose, California, on March 23 – 25, 2015, and will focus on Drones, Things and Automobiles. The schedule has been published, and whether you’ll attend or not, it’s always interested to have a look at what will be talked about to have a peak into the future of Embedded Linux, or simply keep abreast with the progress in the field. So as usual, I’ve gone through the schedule, and made my own virtual program with talks that I find interesting. Monday 23rd 9:00 – 9:30 – Driving standards and Open Source to Grow the Internet of Things by Mark Skarpness, Director of Systems Engineering at Intel Billions of devices are beginning to come online, and many of these devices, large and small, are running open source software.  To fuel this innovation, it’s more important than ever for these devices to use […]

Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2015 Schedule and Demos

Linaro Connect Hong Kong 2015 will take place on February 9 – 13,2015 in Hong Kong, and the organization has released the schedule for the five days events with keynotes, sessions, and demos. Each day will start with the keynote including speakers such as: George Grey, Linaro CEO, who will welcome attendees to Linaro Connect, and provide an update on the latest Linaro developments Jon Masters, Chief ARM Architect, Redhat, who will present Red Hat update and latest ARMv8-A demonstrations Dejan Milojicic, Senior Researcher & Manager, HP Labs Bob Monkman, Enterprise Segment Marketing Manager, ARM, will discuss about  the impact of ARM in next generation cloud and communication network infrastructure Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux Foundation Fellow, will introduce the Greybus Project (Linux for Project Ara modular phones) Warren Rehman,  Android Partner Engineering Manager, Google The agenda also features sessions covering Android, ARMv8-A, Automation & Validation, Digital Home, Enterprise Servers, LAVA, Linux […]

CubieTruck Metal Case Kit Getting Started Guide and Review

I’ve received CubieTruck Metal Case kit just over a month ago, but just like for Ubuntu on ODROID-XU3 Lite, the board could not get HDMI EDID info from my Panasonic TV, which led to a crash at boot time. CubieTech has now fixed the issue, so I’ve finally been able to complete the review with Cubieez (Cubie Easy) distribution, pre-installed on the board, and based on Debian 7.6. You can get the full hardware specs on my previous post, but the kits is comprised of four parts: CubieTruck development based on Allwinner A20 dual core processor, a rugged metallic enclosure, a 128GB SSD, and a 5,300 mAh battery acting as a UPS. I’ll start by showing how to setup the board, test SATA and Gigabit Ethernet performance,  check if the battery acts as expected, try to use the board as a desktop replacement with LibreOffice, Chromium, and so on, and […]

Linaro 14.12 Release with Linux 3.18 and Android 5.0

Linaro usually releases images and source code on the last Thursday of the month, but since most people will have long holidays for Chritsmas and New Year, the last working Thrusday of this month was yesterday (18th). Linaro 14.12 release includes Linux kernel 3.18 (baseline), Linux 3.10.62 & 3.14.26 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 5.0.1 Lollipop. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.18-2014.12 Based on v3.18 release GATOR topic: version 5.20 updated topic from Qualcomm LT (includes IFC6410 board support) updated integration-linaro-vexpress64 topic by ARM LT (FVP Base and Foundation models, and Juno support) updated LLVM topic (uses the community llvmlinux-latest branch) included ILP32 patch set v3  rebased on 3.18. Boot tested with aarch64 userland. Work is in progress to test with aarch64-ilp32 userland. config fragments updated – SELinux related config options enabled in linaro-base.conf, device tree runtime self tests enabled in distribution.conf Linaro […]

Beyond Debug Key Enables JTAG & UART Debugging, Supports OpenOCD

Beyond Semiconductor, a fabless semiconductor company based in Slovenia which develops their own 32-bit BA2x IP cores, has sent me one of their development tool, namely Beyond Debug Key supporting JTAG and UART interfaces either with BeyondStudio for the company’s BA2x processor, or the open source suite OpenOCD for other processors. Since I don’t have any Beyond Semi boards, I instead configured it, and quickly tried it with Atmel SAMA5D3 Xplained ARM Cortex A5 development board, and OpenOCD (Open On-Chip Debugger). The debug tool comes in the package above describing the key features of the kit: Performance Transfer rate in excess of 600 kB/s 30 MHz maximum JTAG clock Less than 20 μW power draw from target board Compatibility Fully compatible with Beyond BA2x processor family Access any 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit or 64-bit processors via JTAG Works with all JTAG compliant devices Software Support OpenOCD for access to a range […]

Free Electrons Publishes Yocto & OpenEmbedded Training Materials

Free Electrons is a small (9 people) engineering company focusing on embedded Linux / Android, and open source software, which also happens to have ported several ARM SoC to the mainline kernel. From time to time, they also offer training sessions, and release course materials publicly. Their latest training is a 3-day course dealing with the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded, using BeagbleBone Black development board for lab sessions, and all materials have been released under a Creative Commons license. The training consists in: Understanding the Yocto Project Using it to build a root filesystem and run it on your target Writing and extending recipes Creating layers Integrating your board in a BSP Creating custom images Application development with an Eclipse SDK Three files are released: yocto-slides.pdf – Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded Training presentation slides (245 pages) give an overview of various build systems, before getting more details about the Yocto […]

Linaro 14.10 Release with Kernel 3.17 and Android 4.4.4, Debian ARM64 Port Almost Complete

Linaro 14.10 has just been released with Linux kernel 3.17 (baseline), Linux 3.10.54 & 3.14.19 (LSK, same versions as last month), and Android 4.4.2 & 4.4.4. Most of the work is a continuation of previous months working member hardware, and ARM64, but one particularly interesting point is that 90% of Debian packages have been built for ARM64, and the next version of Debian should have an official ARM64 port. Here are the highlights of this release: Linux Linaro 3.17-2014.10 updated linaro-android topic. In particular, CONFIG_IPV6=y is no longer the requirement for linux-linaro tree builds GATOR version 5.19 (same version as in 2014.08 release). gatord is fixed to build for ARMv8. dropped multi_pmu_v2 topic by ARM LT (no longer used) updated topic from Qualcomm LT (include IFC6410 board support) replaced integration-linaro-vexpress topic by integration-linaro-vexpress64. Starting from 2014.10 release, linux-linaro kernel tree will use the mainline support for 32-bit vexpress boards. integration-linaro-vexpress64 […]

EmbeddedTS embedded systems design