Automation One Embedded Linux Reference Platform

Supported boards

• Automation One i.MX6ULL Rev. 1 board

Setup instructions

Required Packages for the Build Host

The list of packages you need on the host development system can be large when covering all build scenarios using the Yocto Project. See Yocto Project Reference Manual for details.

Getting the repo tool

The first step is to download and prepare all the Yocto Project (YP) environment, you need to have the repo tool installed in your host machine.

For Debian/Ubuntu Linux distro you can install it running:

sudo apt install repo

If you’re using other Linux distro or the repo tools is not in the repository you can download directly from upstream and set your distro as shown below:

mkdir ~/bin
curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
PATH=${PATH}:~/bin

Download the platform source

The next step is to download the BSP source code, we have a platform to fetch all files that is necessary to build the project.

To download all sources run the following commands:

mkdir a1el-platform
cd a1el-platform
repo init -u https://github.com/Automation-One/a1-embedded-linux-platform.git -b dunfell
repo sync

At the end of the commands, you have every metadata you need to start work with.

Preparing the environment

Before starting to work you need to load the YP variables to run bitbake command:

MACHINE=imx6ull-a1-r1 source setup-environment build

To check all possible values for MACHINE variable see the output of command:

source setup-environment build

Note that you need to run the command above for all new terminal, the loaded variables are only visible to the terminal that you source the setup-environment script.

Automation One i.MX6ULL Rev. 1 - imx6ull-a1-r1

Building the image

The meta-a1 layer provides the a1-image-base image recipe, that has the basic packages to boot the board and to support the main functionalities.

To build the image run:

bitbake a1-image-base

This process can take a long time depending on your host machine.

When the image is ready, the resulted files are available in the deploy directory. By default it is located in build/tmp/deploy/images/imx6ull-a1-r1/.

Building the NAND installer image

The Automation One i.MX6ULL Rev. 1 board uses a raw NAND device as storage. To use the board, you need to flash the image to the NAND device. The meta-a1 provides an installer image recipe to make this process easier.

To build the image installer run:

bitbake a1-image-installer-nand

The resulted files are in the same location that a1-image-base, build/tmp/deploy/images/imx6ull-a1-r1/.

To use this image you need to flash it to a SD card using the following command:

zcat build/tmp/deploy/images/imx6ull-a1-r1/a1-image-installer-nand-imx6ull-a1-r1.wic.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

The sdX is the device that SD card was addressed in you host machine, you can check your using the dmesg command.

Flashing the image to NAND device

With the a1-image-installer-nand image flashed to the SD card, insert the SD card on the board and power up it. You’ll see that the A led will start to blink, this indicates that the installation process is running. The installation process finishes when the A led is off. You can remove the power source and remove the SD card.

Now, power up the board again and the system will boot from the NAND device.

References

• Heading for the Yocto Project
• Embedded Linux Development using Yocto Projects - Second Edition
• Yocto Project Reference Manual