Architech’s ZedBoard documentation¶

Version:	1.0.1A
Copyright:	Architech
Date:	28/01/2014

This documentation is old, you can find the last release: Here

Welcome to ZedBoard documentation!

Have you just received your ZedBoard board? Then you sure want to read the Unboxing Chapter first.

If you are a new user of the Yocto based SDK we suggest you to read the Quick start guide chapter, otherwise, if you want to have a better understanding of specific topics, just jump directly to the chapter that interests you the most.

Furthermore, we encourage you to read the official Yocto Project documentation.

Notations¶

Throughout this guide, there are commands, file system paths, etc., that can either refer to the machine (real or virtual) you use to run the SDK or to the board.

Host

This box will be used to refer to the machine running the SDK

Board

This box will be used to refer to ZedBoard board

However, the previous notations can make you struggle with long lines. In such a case, the following notation is used.

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This Box will be used where long lines need to be displayed, as well as with system paths, commands, configuration files, etc.
All related to the host.
It will be used to display code example as well.

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The same facility will be used, when needed, for the board.

If you click on select on the top right corner of these two last boxes, you will get the text inside the box selected. We have to warn you that your browser might select the line numbers as well, so, the first time you use such a feature, you are invited to check it.

Sometimes, when referring to file system paths, the path starts with /path/to. In such a case, the documentation is NOT referring to a physical file system path, it just means you need to read the path, understand what it means, and understand what is the proper path on your system. For example, when referring to the device file associated to your USB flash memory you could read something like this in the documentation:

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/path/to/your/USB/device

Since things are different from one machine to another, you need to understand its meaning and corresponding value for your machine, like for example:

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/dev/sdb

Chapters¶

Unboxing¶

ZedBoard comes with a very good and complete documentation. To verify the content of the box and to move the first steps with the board, visit the official documentation page, in particular have a look at “ZedBoard Getting Started Guide” document.

Quick start guide¶

This document will guide you from importing the virtual machine to debugging an Hello World! example on a customized Linux distribution you will generate with OpenEmbedded/Yocto toolchain.

Install¶

The development environment is provided as a virtual disk (to be used by a VirtualBox virtual machine) which you can download from this page:

Important

http://downloads.architechboards.com/sdk/virtual_machine/download.html

Important

Compute the MD5SUM value of the zip file you downloaded and compare it to the golden one you find in the download page.

Uncompress the file, and you will get a .vdi file that is our virtual disk image. The environment contains the SDK for all the boards provided by Architech, ZedBoard included.

Download VirtualBox¶

For being able to use it, you first need to install VirtualBox (version 4.2.10 or higher). You can get VirtualBox installer from here:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Download the version that suits your host operating system. You need to download and install the Extension Pack as well.

Important

Make sure that the extension pack has the same version of VirtualBox.

Install the software with all the default options.

Create a new Virtual Machine¶

Run VirtualBox

Click on New button

Select the name of the virtual machine and the operating system type

Select the amount of memory you want to give to your new virtual machine

Make the virtual machine use Architech’s virtual disk by pointing to the downloaded file. Than click on Create.

Setup the network¶

We need to setup a port forwarding rule to let you (later) use the virtual machine as a local repository of packages.

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select Network

Expand Advanced of Adapter 1

Click on Port Forwarding

_images/vdi_network_nat_port_forwarding.png

Add a new rule

_images/vdi_network_nat_port_forwarding_rule_add.png

Configure the rule

_images/vdi_network_nat_port_forwarding_rule_added.png

Click on Ok

Customize the number of processors¶

Building an entire system from the ground up is a business that can take up to several hours. To improve the performances of the overall build process, you can, if your computer has enough resources, assign more than one processor to the virtual machine.

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select System
Select Processor
Assign the number of processors you wish to assign to the virtual machine

_images/vdi_change_number_of_processors.png

Create a shared folder¶

A shared folder is way for host and guest operating systems to exchange files by means of the file system. You need to choose a directory on your host operating system to share with the guest operating system.

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select Shared Folders
Add a new shared folder

Choose a directory to share on your host machine. Make sure Auto-mount is selected.

Once the virtual machine has been booted, the shared folder will be mounted under /media/ directory inside the virtual machine.

Build¶

Important

A working internet connection, several GB of free disk space and several hours are required by the build process

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines inside Virtual Box application

Click on the icon Start button in the toolbar and wait until the virtual machine is ready

Double click on Architech SDK icon you have on the virtual machine desktop.

The first screen gives you two choices: ArchiTech and 3rd Party. Choose ArchiTech.

Select ZedBoard as board you want develop on.

_images/splashscreen_board_selection.jpg

A new screen opens up from where you can perform a set of actions. Click on Run bitbake to obtain a terminal ready to start to build an image.

Open local.conf file:

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gedit conf/local.conf

Go to the end of the file and add the following lines:

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EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES_append = " tools-debug debug-tweaks"
IMAGE_INSTALL_append = " tcf-agent"

This will trigger the installation of a features set onto the final root file system, like tcf-agent and gdbserver.

Save the file and close gedit.
Build core-image-minimal-dev image by means of the following command:

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bitbake core-image-minimal-dev

At the end of the build process, the image will be saved inside directory:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7

Setup sysroot directory on your host machine:

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sudo tar -xzf /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/core-image-minimal-dev-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz -C /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/

Note

sudo password is: “architech“

Deploy¶

Warning

The following instruction will make you overwrite your SD card content, it will be lost forever! If you have important data on it, make sure you do a backup of your data on the SD card before catching up with the next steps.

Create two partitions on the SD card you mean to use to boot the board. The first one has to be a FAT16 (name it boot), 64MB will be more than enough. Create the second partition as an EXT2 (name it rootfs), make it big enough to fill the free space on the disk size.

Run this command:

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mkdir -p /home/architech/Documents/zedboard

to create the directory that will be used to save a few files you need to download from the Internet:

Now, we assume that the first partition of the SD card gets mounted (in your SDK virtual machine) under:

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/media/boot

while the second partition gets mounted under:

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/media/rootfs

Warning

If that’s not the case for your configuration, please find out which are the proper mounting points for those two partitions on your system and replace them in the following instructions.

Ok then, we can finally deploy bootloader and kernel on the first partition of the SD card:

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cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/BOOT.BIN /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/uEnv.txt /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/devicetree.dtb /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/uImage /media/boot/

and the root file system on the second partition of the SD card:

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sudo rm -rf /media/rootfs/*
sudo tar -xzf /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/core-image-minimal-dev-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz -C /media/rootfs/

Important

sudo password is architech

Make sure everything has been written on the SD card:

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sync

and unmount the SD card from your system.

Boot¶

Make sure that ZedBoard boot mode (JP7-JP11) and MIO0 (JP6) jumpers are set like in the following picture:

Insert the SD card you just prepared inside socket J12.

Connect the external power adapter to ZedBoard connector J20 and move switch SW8 to the “On” position.

And now proceed by setting up the serial console.

On ZedBoard there is an USB-UART port (J14) labeled UART

which you can connect, by means of a micro-USB cable, to your personal computer.

Note

Every operating system has its own killer application to give you a serial terminal interface. In this guide, we are assuming your host operating system is Ubuntu.

On a Linux (Ubuntu) host machine, the console is seen as a ttyACMX device and you can access to it by means of an application like minicom.

Minicom needs to know the name of the serial device. The simplest way for you to discover the name of the device is by looking to the kernel messages, so:

clean the kernel messages

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sudo dmesg -c

connect the mini-USB cable to the board already powered-on
display the kernel messages

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dmesg

read the output

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[29629.785374] usb 3-2: >new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[29629.806908] usb 3-2: >New USB device found, idVendor=04b4, idProduct=0008
[29629.806915] usb 3-2: >New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=4
[29629.806919] usb 3-2: >Product: Cypress-USB2UART-0123456
[29629.806922] usb 3-2: >Manufacturer: 2012 Cypress Semiconductor
[29629.806925] usb 3-2: >SerialNumber: 0201258B0816
[29629.858654] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: >This device cannot do calls on its own. It is not a modem.
[29629.858705] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: >ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[29629.859345] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[29629.859347] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

As you can see, here the device has been recognized as /dev/ttyACM0.

Now that you know the device name, run minicom:

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sudo minicom -ws

If minicom is not installed, you can install it with:

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sudo apt-get install minicom

then you can setup your port with these parameters:

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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A -    Serial Device      : /dev/ttyACM0                              |
| B - Lockfile Location     : /var/lock                                 |
| C -   Callin Program      :                                           |
| D -  Callout Program      :                                           |
| E -    Bps/Par/Bits       : 115200 8N1                                |
| F - Hardware Flow Control : No                                        |
| G - Software Flow Control : No                                        |
|                                                                       |
|    Change which setting?                                              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
        | Screen and keyboard      |
        | Save setup as dfl        |
        | Save setup as..          |
        | Exit                     |
        | Exit from Minicom        |
        +--------------------------+

If on your system the device has not been recognized as /dev/ttyACM0, just replace /dev/ttyACM0 with the proper device.

Once you are done configuring the serial port, you are back to minicom main menu and you can select exit.

Give root to the login prompt:

Board

zedboard-zynq7 login: root

and press Enter.

Note

Sometimes, the time you spend setting up minicom makes you miss all the output that leads to the login and you see just a black screen, press Enter then to get the login prompt.

Code¶

The time to create a simple HelloWorld! application using Eclipse has come.

Return to the Splashscreen, which we left on ZedBoard board screen, and click on Develop with Eclipse.

Go to File→ New→ Project, select C/C++→ C Project and press next button.

Insert HelloWorld as project name, select Hello World ANSI C Autotools Project and press next button.

Insert Author field and click on Finish button. Select Yes on the Open Associated Perspective? question.
Build the project by selecting Project→ Build All.

Debug¶

Use an ethernet cable to connect the board (connector J11) to your PC. Configure your workstation ip address as 192.168.0.100. Make sure the board can be seen by your host machine:

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ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.10

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ping 192.168.0.10

If the output is similar to this one:

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64 bytes from 192.168.0.100: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.946 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.100: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.763 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.100: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.671 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.0.100: icmp_req=4 ttl=64 time=0.793 ms

then the ethernet connection is ok. Enable the remote debug with Yocto by typing this command on ZedBoard console:

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/etc/init.d/tcf-agent restart

On the Host machine, follow these steps to let Eclipse deploy and debug your application:

Select Run→ Debug Configurations...
In the left area, expand C/C++Remote Application.
Locate your project and select it to bring up a new tabbed view in the Debug Configurations Dialog.

Insert in C/C++ Application the filepath (on your host machine) of the compiled binary.
Click on New button near the drop-down menu in the Connection field.
Select TCF icon.

Insert in Host Name and Connection Name fields the IP address of the target board. (e.g. 192.168.0.10)

Then press Finish.
Use the drop-down menu now in the Connection field and pick up the IP Address you entered earlier.
Enter the absolute path on the target into which you want to deploy the cross-compiled application. Use the Browse button near Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++Application: field. No password is needed.

Enter also in the path the name of the application you want to debug. (e.g. Hello)

Select Debugger tab

In GDB Debugger field, insert the filepath of gdb for your toolchain

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/i686-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gdb

In Debugger window there is a tab named Shared Library, click on it.
Add the libraries paths lib and usr/lib of the rootfs (which must be the same used in the target board)

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/lib
/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/usr/lib

Click Debug to login.
Accept the debug perspective.

Important

If debug does not work, check on the board if tcf-agent is running and gdbserver has been installed.

SDK Architecture¶

This chapter gives an overview on how the SDK has been composed and where to find the tools on the virtual machine.

SDK¶

The SDK provided by Architech to support ZedBoard is composed by several components, the most important of which are:

Yocto,
Eclipse, and
Qt Creator

Regarding the installation and configuration of these tools, you have many options:

get a virtual machine with everything already setup,
download a script to setup your Ubuntu machine, or
just get the meta-layer and compose your SDK by hand

The method you choose depends on your level of expertise and the results you want to achieve.

If you are new to Yocto and/or Linux, or simply you don’t want to read tons of documentation right now, we suggest you to download and install the virtual machine because it is the simplest solution (have a look at VM content), everything inside the virtual machine has been thought to work out of the box, plus you will get support.

If performances are your greatest concerns, consider reading Chapter Create SDK.

Virtual Machine¶

The development environment is provided as a virtual disk (to be used by a VirtualBox virtual machine) which you can download from this page:

Important

http://downloads.architechboards.com/sdk/virtual_machine/download.html

Important

Compute the MD5SUM value of the zip file you downloaded and compare it to the golden one you find in the download page.

Uncompress the file, and you will get a .vdi file that is our virtual disk image. The environment contains the SDK for all the boards provided by Architech, ZedBoard included.

Download VirtualBox¶

For being able to use it, you first need to install VirtualBox (version 4.2.10 or higher). You can get VirtualBox installer from here:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Download the version that suits your host operating system. You need to download and install the Extension Pack as well.

Important

Make sure that the extension pack has the same version of VirtualBox.

Install the software with all the default options.

Create a new Virtual Machine¶

Run VirtualBox

Click on New button

Select the name of the virtual machine and the operating system type

Select the amount of memory you want to give to your new virtual machine

Make the virtual machine use Architech’s virtual disk by pointing to the downloaded file. Than click on Create.

Setup the network¶

We need to setup a port forwarding rule to let you (later) use the virtual machine as a local repository of packages.

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select Network

Expand Advanced of Adapter 1

Click on Port Forwarding

Add a new rule

Configure the rule

Click on Ok

Customize the number of processors¶

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select System
Select Processor
Assign the number of processors you wish to assign to the virtual machine

Create a shared folder¶

Note

The virtual machine must be off

Select Architech’s virtual machine from the list of virtual machines

Click on Settings

Select Shared Folders
Add a new shared folder

Choose a directory to share on your host machine. Make sure Auto-mount is selected.

Once the virtual machine has been booted, the shared folder will be mounted under /media/ directory inside the virtual machine.

VM content¶

The virtual machine provided by Architech contains:

A splash screen, used to easily interact with the boards tools
Yocto/OpenEmbedded toolchain to build BSPs and file systems
A cross-toolchain (derived from Yocto/OpenEmbedded) for all the boards
Eclipse, installed and configured
Qt creator, installed and configured

All the aforementioned tools are installed under directory /home/architech/architech_sdk, its sub-directories main layout is the following:

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architech_sdk
    |
    |_ splashscreen
    |
    |_ spashscreen-interface
    |
    |_ architech-manifest
    |
    |_ architech
        |
        |_ ...
        |
        |_ zedboard
            |
            |_ eclipse
            |
            |_ java
            |
            |_ qtcreator
            |
            |_ splashscreen
            |
            |_ sysroot
            |
            |_ toolchain
            |
            |_ workspace
            |   |
            |   |_ eclipse
            |   |
            |   |_ qt
            |
            |_ yocto
                |
                |_ build
                |
                |_ poky
                |
                |_ meta-xilinx
                |
                |_ ...

zedboard directory contains all the tools composing the ArchiTech SDK for ZedBoard board, along with all the information needed by the splash screen application. In particular:

eclipse directory is where Eclipse IDE has been installed
java directory is where the Java Virtual Machine has been installed (needed by Eclipse)
qtcreator contains the installation of Qt Creator IDE
splashscreen directory contains information and scripts used by the splash screen application,
sysroot is supposed to contain the file system you want to compile against,
toolchain is where the cross-toolchain has been installed installed
workspace contains the the workspaces for Eclipse and Qt Creator IDEs
yocto is where you find all the meta-layers ZedBoard requires, along with Poky and the build directory

Splash screen¶

The splash screen application has been designed to facilitate the access to the boards tools. It can be opened by clicking on its Desktop icon.

Once started, you can can choose if you want to work with Architech’s boards or with partners’ ones. For ZedBoard, choose ArchiTech.

A list of all available Architech’s boards will open, select ZedBoard.

A list of actions related to ZedBoard that can be activated will appear.

Create SDK¶

If you have speed in mind, it is possible to install the SDK on a native Ubuntu machine (other Linux distributions may support this SDK with minor changes but won’t be supported). This chapter will guide you on how to clone the entire SDK, to setup the SDK for one board or just OpenEmbedded/Yocto for ZedBoard board.

Installation¶

Architech’s Yocto based SDK is built on top of Ubuntu 12.04 32bit, hence all the scripts provided are proven to work on such a system.

If you wish to use another distribution/version you might need to change some script option and/or modify the scripts yourself, remember that you won’t get any support in doing so.

Install a clone of the virtual machine inside your native machine¶

To install the same tools you get inside the virtual machine on your native machine you need to download and run a system wide installation script:

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git clone -b dora https://github.com/architech-boards/machine_installer.git
cd machine_installer
./machine_install -g -p

where -g option asks the script to install and configure a few graphic customization, while -p option asks the script to install the required packages on the machine. If you want to install the toolchain on a machine not equal to Ubuntu 12.04 32bit then you may want to read the script, install the required packages by hand, and run it without options. You might need to recompile the Qt application used to render the splashscreen.

At the end of the installation process, you will get the same tools installed within the virtual machine, that is, all the tools necessary to work with Architech’s boards.

Install just one board¶

If you don’t want to install the tools for all the boards, you can install just the subset of tools related to ZedBoard:

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git clone -b dora https://github.com/architech-boards/zedboard-splashscreen.git
cd zedboard-splashscreen
./run_install

This script needs the same tools/packages required by machine_install

Yocto¶

The easiest way to setup and keep all the necessary meta-layers in sync with upstream repositories is achieved by means of Google’s repo tool. The following steps are necessary for a clean installation:

Install repo tool, if you already have it go to step 4

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mkdir -p ~/bin
sudo apt-get install curl
curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo
chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

Make sure directory ~/bin is included in your PATH variable by printing its content

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echo $PATH

If ~/bin directory is not included, add this line to your ~/.bashrc

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export PATH="$PATH:${HOME}/bin"

Open a new terminal
Change the current directory to the directory where you want all the meta-layers to be downloaded into
Download the manifest

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repo init -u https://github.com/architech-boards/zedboard-manifest.git -b dora -m manifest.xml

Download the repositories

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repo sync

By the end of the last step, all the necessary meta-layers should be in place, anyway, you still need to edit your local.conf and bblayers.conf to compile for zedboard-zynq7 machine and using all the downloaded meta-layers.

When you want your local repositories to be updated, just:

Open a terminal
Change the current directory to the directory where you ran repo init
Sync your repositories with upstream

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repo sync

If you really want to download everything by hand, just clone branch dora of meta-xilinx:

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git clone -b dora git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-xilinx.git

and have a look at the README file.

To install Eclipse, Qt Creator, cross-toolchain, NFS, TFTP, etc., read Yocto/OpenEmbedded documentation, along with the other tools one.

BSP¶

The Board Support Package is composed by a set files, patches, recipes, configuration files, etc. This chapter gives you the information you need when you want to customize something, fix a bug, or simply learn how the all thing has been assembled.

U-boot¶

The bootloader used by ZedBoard is u-boot. If you want to browse/modify the sources first you have to get them. There are two viable ways to do that:

if you already built ZedBoard’s bootloader with Bitbake, then you already have them on your (virtual) disk, otherwise
you can download and patch them.

Bitbake will place u-boot sources under:

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/path/to/build/tmp/work/zedboard_zynq7-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-xlnx/v2013.01-xilinx+gitAUTOINC+20a6cdd301-r1/git

this means that within the virtual machine you will find them under:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/work/zedboard_zynq7-poky-linux-gnueabi/u-boot-xlnx/v2013.01-xilinx+gitAUTOINC+20a6cdd301-r1/git

We suggest you to don’t work under Bitbake build directory, you will pay a speed penalty and you can have troubles syncronizing the all thing. Just copy the sources some place else and do what you have to do.

If you didn’t build them already with Bitbake, or you just want to make every step by hand, you can always get the sources from the Internet by cloning the proper repository and checking out the proper commit:

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cd ~/Documents
git clone git://github.com/Xilinx/u-boot-xlnx.git
cd u-boot-xlnx
git checkout 20a6cdd301941b97961c9c5425b5fbb771321aac

and by properly patching the sources:

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cd ~/Documents
git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-xilinx.git
cd meta-xilinx/
git checkout cb7329a596a5ab2d1392c1962f9975eeef8e4576
cd ..
patch -p1 -d u-boot-xlnx/ < meta-xilinx/recipes-bsp/u-boot/u-boot-xlnx/*

Suppose you modified something and you want to recompile the sources to test your patches, well, you need a cross-toolchain (see Cross compiler Section). If you are not working with the virtual machine, the most comfortable way to get the toolchain is to ask Bitbake for it:

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bitbake meta-toolchain

When Bitbake finishes, you will find an install script under directory:

Host

path/to/build/tmp/deploy/sdk/

Install the script, and you will get under the installation directory a script to source to get your environment almost in place for compiling. The name of the script is:

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environment-setup-armv7a-vfp-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi

Anyway, the environment is not quite right for compiling the bootloader and the Linux kernel, you need to unset a few variables:

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unset CFLAGS CPPFLAGS CXXFLAGS LDFLAGS

Inside the virtual machine, the toolchain is already installed under:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain

In the very same directory there is a file, environment-nofs, that you can source that takes care of the environment for you when you want to compile the bootloader or the kernel

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source /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/environment-nofs

Ok, now you a have working environment to compile u-boot, just do:

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cd ~/Documents/u-boot-xlnx/
make mrproper
make zynq_zed_config
make [-j parallelism factor] all

if you omit -j parameter, make will run one task after the other, if you specify it make will parallelize the tasks execution while respecting the dependencies between them. Generally, you will place a value for -j parameter corresponding to the double of your processor’s cores number, for example, on a quad core machine you will place -j 8.

Once the build process is complete, you will find u-boot file in your sources directory, that’s your binary. However, u-boot file alone is not able to boot the board, you are going to need a First Stage Bootloader and a Bitstream to make the board properly boot.

Linux Kernel¶

Like we saw for the bootloader, the first thing you need is: sources. Get them from Bitbake build directory (if you built the kernel with it) or get them from the Internet.

Bitbake will place the sources under directory:

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/path/to/build/tmp/work/zedboard_zynq7-poky-linux-gnueabi/linux-xlnx/3.8-xilinx+gitf4ff79d44a966ebea6229213816d17eb472b303e-r1/git

If you are working with the virtual machine, you will find them under directory:

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/work/zedboard_zynq7-poky-linux-gnueabi/linux-xlnx/3.8-xilinx+gitf4ff79d44a966ebea6229213816d17eb472b303e-r1/git

We suggest you to don’t work under Bitbake build directory, you will pay a speed penalty and you could have troubles syncronizing the all thing. Just copy them some place else and do what you have to do.

If you didn’t build them already with Bitbake or you just want to do make every step by hand, you can always get them from the Internet by cloning the proper repository and checking out the proper hash commit:

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cd ~/Documents
git clone git://github.com/Xilinx/linux-xlnx
cd linux-xlnx
git checkout f4ff79d44a966ebea6229213816d17eb472b303e

and by properly patching the sources:

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cd ~/Documents
git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-xilinx.git
cd meta-xilinx/
git checkout cb7329a596a5ab2d1392c1962f9975eeef8e4576
cd ..
patch -p1 -d linux-xlnx/ < meta-xilix/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-xlnx/libtraceevent-Remove-hard-coded-include-to-usr-local.patch
cp /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/meta-xilinx/conf/machine/boards/common/zynq_defconfig_3.8.cfg ~/linux-xlnx/.config

Source the script to load the proper evironment for the cross-toolchain (see Cross compiler Section) and you are ready to customize the kernel:

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cd ~/Documents/linux-xlnx
make menuconfig

and to compile it:

Host

make -j <2 * number of processor’s cores> uImage

By the end of the build process you will get uImage under arch/arm/boot.

Host

~/Documents/linux-xlnx/arch/arm/boot/uImage

Enjoy!

Meta Layer¶

A Yocto/OpenEmbedded meta-layer is a directory that contains recipes, configuration files, patches, etc., all needed by Bitbake to properly “see” and build a BSP, a distrubution, a (set of) package(s), whatever. meta-xilinx is a meta-layer which defines the BSP for Xilinx devices, ZedBoard included. You can get it with git:

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git clone git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-xilinx.git
cd meta-xilinx/
git checkout cb7329a596a5ab2d1392c1962f9975eeef8e4576

Please, refer to the README file contained inside the meta-layer directory.

The machine name corresponding to ZedBoard is zedboard-zynq7.

Root FS¶

The final root file system will be packaged as a .tar.gz file that, at the end of the build process, Bitbake will let you find it under directory:

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/path/to/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/

this means that within the SDK the actual path of the directory is:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/

To deploy the root file system, you are going to need an SD card with two partitions on it.

The first partition must be formatted as FAT16, its size must be sufficient to contain all the following files (64MB are more than enough):

UBOOT.BIN, read directly by the processor at boot, containing the first stage bootloader, the bitstream (optional), and u-boot
uEnv.txt, the bootscript with customizations
uImage, the Linux kernel
devicetree.dtb, the device tree binary file

To have a better understanding of those components and how to boot the board please refer to Let’s boot Section.

The second partition, our root file system partition, can be formatted as EXT2.

We assume that the second partition of the SD card gets mounted (in your SDK virtual machine) under:

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/media/rootfs

Warning

If that’s not the case for your configuration, please find out what is the proper mounting point for such a partition on your system and replace it in the following instructions.

Untar the file corresponding to your root file system inside such a partition:

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sudo rm -rf /media/rootfs/*
sudo tar -xzf /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/<image>-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz -C /media/rootfs/

where <image> is the name of the recipe you used to build your root file system. For example, if you built core-image-minimal-dev with Bitbake, then the name of the tarball will be core-image-minimal-dev-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz

Important

sudo password is architech

Toolchain¶

Once your (virtual/)machine has been set up you can compile, customize the BSP for your board, write and debug applications, change the file system on-the-fly directly on the board, etc. This chapter will guide you to the basic use of the most important tools you can use to build customize, develop and tune your board.

Bitbake¶

Bitbake is the most important and powerful tool available inside Yocto/OpenEmbedded. It takes as input configuration files and recipes and produces what it is asked for, that is, it can build a package, the Linux kernel, the bootloader, an entire operating system from scratch, etc.

A recipe (.bb file) is a collection of metadata used by BitBake to set variables or define additional build-time tasks. By means of variables, a recipe can specify, for example, where to get the sources, which build process to use, the license of the package, an so on. There is a set of predefined tasks (the fetch task for example fetches the sources from the network, from a repository or from the local machine, than the sources are cached for later reuses) that executed one after the other get the job done, but a recipe can always add custom ones or override/modify existing ones. The most fine-graned operation that Bitbake can execute is, in fact, a single task.

Environment¶

To properly run Bitbake, the first thing you need to do is setup the shell environment. Luckily, there is a script that takes care of it, all you need to do is:

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source /path/to/oe-init-build-env /path/to/build/directory

Inside the virtual machine, you can find oe-init-build-env script inside:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/poky

If you omit the build directory path, a directory named build will be created under your current working directory.

By default, with the SDK, the script is used like this:

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source /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/poky/oe-init-build-env

Your current working directory changes to such a directory and you can customize configurations files (that the environment script put in place for you when creating the directory), run Bitbake to build whatever pops to your mind as well run hob. If you specify a custom directory, the script will setup all you need inside that directory and will change your current working directory to that specific directory.

Important

The build directory contains all the caches, builds output, temporary files, log files, file system images... everything!

The default build directory for ZedBoard is located under:

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build

and the splash screen has a facility (a button located under ZedBoard’s page) that can take you there with the right environment already in place so you are productive right away.

Configuration files¶

Configuration files are used by Bitbake to define variables value, preferences, etc..., there are a lot of them. At the beginning you should just worry about two of them, both located under conf directory inside your build directory, we are talking about local.conf and bblayers.conf.

local.conf contains your customizations for the build process, the most important variables you should be interested about are: MACHINE, DISTRO, BB_NUMBER_THREADS and PARALLEL_MAKE. MACHINE defines the target machine you want compile against. The proper value for ZedBoard is zedboard-zynq7:

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MACHINE ??= "zedboard-zynq7"

DISTRO let you choose which distribution to use to build the root file systems for the board. The default distribution to use with the board is:

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DISTRO ?= "poky"

BB_NUMBER_THREADS and PARALLEL_MAKE can help you speed up the build process. BB_NUMBER_THREADS is used to tell Bitbake how many tasks can be executed at the same time, while PARALLEL_MAKE contains the -j option to give to make program when issued. Both BB_NUMBER_THREADS and PARALLEL_MAKE are related to the number of processors of your (virtual) machine, and should be set with a number that is two times the number of processors on your (virtual) machine. If for example, your (virtual) machine has/sees four cores, then you should set those variables like this:

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BB_NUMBER_THREADS ?= "8"
PARALLEL_MAKE ?= "-j 8"

bblayers.conf is used to tell Bitbake which meta-layers to take into account when parsing/looking for recipes, machine, distributions, configuration files, bbclasses, and so on. The most important variable contained inside bblayers.conf is BBLAYERS, it’s the variable where the actual meta-layers layout get specified.

All the variables value we just spoke about are taken care of by Architech installation scripts.

Command line¶

With your shell setup with the proper environment and your configuration files customized according to your board and your will, you are ready to use Bitbake. The first suggestion is to run:

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bitbake -h

Bitbake will show you all the options it can be run with. During normal activity you will need to simply run a command like:

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bitbake <recipe name>

for example:

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bitbake core-image-minimal-dev

Such a comman will build bootloader, Linux kernel and a root file system. core-image-minimal-dev tells Bitbake to execute whatever recipe

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/poky/meta/recipes-extended/images/core-image-minimal-dev.bb

tells it to do, so, you just place the name of the recipe without the extension.

Of course, there are times when you want more control over Bitbake, for example, you want to execute just one task like recompiling the Linux kernel, no matter what. That action can be achieved with:

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bitbake -c compile -f virtual/kernel

where -c compile states the you want to execute the do_compile task and -f forces Bitbake to execute the command even if it thinks that there are no modifications and hence there is no need to to execute the same command again.

Another useful option is -e which gets Bitbake to print the environment state for the command you ran.

The last option we want to introduce is -D, which can be in fact repeated more than once and asks Bitbake to emit debug print. The amount of debug output you get depend on many times you repeated the option.

Of course, there are other options, but the ones introduced here should give you an head start.

Hob¶

Hob is a graphical interface for Bitbake. It can be called once Bitbake environment has been setup (see Bitbake) like this:

Host

hob

once open, you are required to select the machine you want to compile against

after that, you can select the image you want to build and, of course, you can customize it.

Eclipse¶

Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE). It contains a base workspace and the Yocto plug-in system to compile and debug a program for ZedBoard. Hereafter, the operating system that runs the IDE/debugger will be named host machine, and the board being debugged will be named target machine. The host machine could be running as a virtual machine guest operating system, anyway, the documentation for the host machine running as a guest operating system and as host operating system is exactly the same.

To write your application you need:

a root file system filesystem (you can use bitbake/hob to build your preferred filesystem) with development support (that is, it must include all the necessary libraries, header files, the tcf-agent program and gdbserver) included
a media with the root filesystem installed and, if necessary, the bootloader
ZedBoard powered up with the aforementioned root file system
a working serial console terminal
a working network connection between your workstation and the board (connector J11), so, be sure that:

your board has ip address 192.168.0.10 on interface eth0, and

your PC has an ip address in the same family of addresses, e.g. 192.168.0.100.

Creating the Project¶

You can create two types of projects: Autotools-based, or Makefile-based. This section describes how to create Autotools-based projects from within the Eclipse IDE. Launch Eclipse using Architech Splashscreen just click on Develop with Eclipse.

To create a project based on a Yocto template and then display the source code, follow these steps:

Select File→New→Project...
Under C/C++, double click on C Project to create the project.
Click on “Next” button
Expand Yocto Project ADT Autotools Project.
Select Hello World ANSI C Autotools Project. This is an Autotools-based project based on a Yocto Project template.

Put a name in the Project name: field. Do not use hyphens as part of the name.
Click Next.
Add information in the Author and Copyright notice fields.
Be sure the License field is correct.
Click Finish.

Note

If the “open perspective” prompt appears, click Yes so that you enter in C/C++ perspective. The left-hand navigation panel shows your project. You can display your source by double clicking on the project source file.

Select Project→Properties→Yocto Project Settings and check Use project specific settings

Building the Project¶

To build the project, select Project→Build Project. The console should update with messages from the cross-compiler. To add more libraries to compile:

Click on Project→Properties.
Expand the box next to Autotools.
Select Configure Settings.
In CFLAGS field, you can add the path of includes with -Ipath_include
In LDFLAGS field, you can specify the libraries you use with -lname_library and you can also specify the path where to look for libraries with -Lpath_library
Click on Project→Build All to compile the project

Note

All libraries must be located in /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot subdirectories.

Deploying and Debugging the Application¶

Connect ZedBoard console to your PC and power-on the board. Once you built the project and the board is running the image, use minicom to run tcf-agent program in target board:

Board select

zedboard login: root
/etc/init.d/tcf-agent restart

On the Host machine, follow these steps to let Eclipse deploy and debug your application:

Select Run→Debug Configurations...
In the left area, expand C/C++ Remote Application.
Locate your project and select it to bring up a new tabbed view in the Debug Configurations Dialog.

Insert in C/C++ Application the filepath of your application binary on your host machine.
Click on “New” button near the drop-down menu in the Connection field.
Select TCF icon.

Insert in Host Name and Connection Name fields the IP address of the target board. (e.g. 192.168.0.10)

Press Finish.
Use the drop-down menu now in the Connection field and pick the IP Address you entered earlier.
Enter the absolute path on the target into which you want to deploy the application. Use Browse button near Remote Absolute File Path for C/C++Application: field. No password is needed.

Enter also in the path the name of the application you want to debug. (e.g. Hello)

Select Debugger tab

In GDB Debugger field, insert the filepath of gdb for your toolchain

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/i686-pokysdk-linux/usr/bin/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi/arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gdb

In Debugger window there is a tab named Shared Library, click on it.
Add the libraries paths lib and usr/lib of the rootfs (which must be the same used in the target board)

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/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/lib
/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/usr/lib

Click Debug to bring up a login screen and login.
Accept the debug perspective.

Important

If debug does not work, check on the board if tcf-agent is running and gdbserver has been installed.

Qt Framework¶

The Qt Framework used by this SDK is composed of libraries for your host machine and your target. To compile the libraries for x86 you only need your distribution toolchain, while to compile the libraries for ZedBoard board you need the proper cross-toolchain (see Chapter Cross compiler for further information on how to get it).

This section just wants to show you how the framework has been generated.

Before to begin, keep in mind you might need to install the following package to compile yourself the libraries under Ubuntu

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sudo apt-get install libxrender-dev

So, to install qt-everywhere for x86 from sources, the usual drill of download, uncompress, configure, make and make install is required:

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wget http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.5/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5.zip
unzip qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5.zip
cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5
./configure /*Choose Open source Edition when asked, and accept the license*/
make
make install

The installation of the libraries for ZedBoard from sources is sligthly more complicated. Once you downloaded and uncompressed the sources

Host select

wget http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.5/qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5.zip
unzip qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5.zip
cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-4.8.5
cp -r mkspecs/qws/linux-arm-g++/ mkspecs/qws/linux-zedboard-g++
cd mkspecs/qws/linux-zedboard-g++/
gedit qmake.conf

you need to customize qmake configuration

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#
# qmake configuration for building with arm-linux-g++
#

include(../../common/linux.conf)
include(../../common/gcc-base-unix.conf)
include(../../common/g++-unix.conf)
include(../../common/qws.conf)

# modifications to g++.conf
QMAKE_CC                = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-gcc --sysroot=/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/armv7a-vfp-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi
QMAKE_CXX               = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-g++ --sysroot=/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/armv7a-vfp-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi
QMAKE_LINK              = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-g++ --sysroot=/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/armv7a-vfp-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi
QMAKE_LINK_SHLIB        = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-g++ --sysroot=/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/sysroots/armv7a-vfp-neon-poky-linux-gnueabi

# modifications to linux.conf
QMAKE_AR                = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-ar cqs
QMAKE_OBJCOPY           = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-objcopy
QMAKE_STRIP             = arm-poky-linux-gnueabi-strip

load(qt_config)

save the file and exit from gedit, then configure, make and make install

Host select

cd ../../../
./configure -no-pch -opensource -confirm-license -prefix /usr/local/Trolltech/Zedboard -no-qt3support -embedded arm -nomake examples -nomake demo -little-endian -xplatform qws/linux-zedboard-g++ -qtlibinfix E
make
make install

A comfortable tool to get your job done with Qt is Qt Creator, which its use will be introduced in Section Qt Creator. You can download it from here:

Tip

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qtcreator.mirror/files/Qt%20Creator%202.8.1/qt-creator-linux-x86-opensource-2.8.1.run/download

Qt Creator¶

Qt is a cross-platform application framework that is used to build applications. One of the best features of Qt is its capability of generating Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs).
Qt Creator is a cross-platform C++ IDE which includes a visual debugger, an integrated GUI layout and form designer. It makes possible to compile and debug applications on both x86 (host) and ARM (target) machines.
This SDK relies on version 4.8.5 of Qt and version 2.8.1 of Qt Creator.

Before getting our hands dirty, make sure all these steps have been followed:

Use Hob or Bitbake to build an image which includes: openssh, support for C++, tcf-agent and gdbserver.

Note

You could build qt4e-demo-image if you want to see the demo of Qt. Just remember to complete its file system with tcf-agent, gdbserver and openssh.

Deploy the root file system just generated on the final media used to boot the board
Replicate the same root file system into directory

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot

Copy the Qt Libraries to the board media used to boot

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sudo mkdir -p /path/to/board/sysroot/usr/local/Trolltech/
sudo cp -r /usr/local/Trolltech/Zedboard/* /path/to/board/sysroot/usr/local/Trolltech/

Copy the Qt Libraries to your sdk sysroot directory

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sudo mkdir -p ~/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/usr/local/Trolltech/
sudo cp -r /usr/local/Trolltech/Zedboard/* ~/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/sysroot/usr/local/Trolltech

Unmount the media used to boot the board from your computer and insert it into the board
Power-On the board
Open up the serial console.

If you based your root file system on qt4e-demo-image, be sure you execute this command

Board select

/etc/init.d/qtdemo stop

to stop the execution of the demo application.

Provide a working network connection between your workstation and the board (connector J11), so, be sure that:

your board has ip address 192.168.0.10 on interface eth0, and

your PC has an ip address in the same family of addresses, e.g. 192.168.0.100.

Hello World!¶

The purpose of this example project is to generate a form with an “Hello World” label in it, at the beginning on the x86 virtual machine and than on ZedBoard board.

To create the project follow these steps:

Use the Welcome Screen to run Qt Creator by selecting Architech→ZedBoard→Develop with Qt Creator

Go to File -> Open File or Project to open QtHelloWorld.pro file located in /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/workspace/qt/QtHelloWorld/ directory.
Click on “QtHelloWorld” icon to open project menu.

Select the build configuration: Desktop - Debug.

To build the project, click on the bottom-left icon.

Once you built the project, click on the green triangle to run it.

Congratulations! You just built your first Qt application for x86.

In the next section we will debug our Hello World! application directly on ZedBoard.

Debug Hello World project¶

Select build configuration: zedboard - Debug and build the project.

Copy the generated executable to the target board (e.g /home/root/).

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scp /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/workspace/qt/build-QtHelloWorld-Hachiko-Debug/QtHelloWorld root@192.168.0.10:/home/root

Use minicom to launch gdbserver application on the target board:

Board select

gdbserver :10000 QtHelloWorld -qws

In Qt Creator, open the source file main.cpp and set a breakpoint at line 6. | To do this go with the mouse at line 6 and click with the right button to open the menu, select Set brackpoint at line 6

Go to Debug→Start Debugging→Attach To Remote Debug Server, a form named “Start Debugger” will appear, insert the following data:

Kit: zedboard
Local executable:

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/workspace/qt/build-QtHelloWorld-zedboard-Debug/QtHelloWorld

Press OK button to start the debug.

The hotkeys to debug the application are:

F10: Step over
F11: Step into
Shift + F11: Step out
F5: Continue, or press this icon:

To successfully exit from the debug it is better to close the graphical application from the target board with the mouse by clicking on the ‘X’ symbol.

Cross compiler¶

Yocto/OpenEmbedded can be driven to generate the cross-toolchain for your platform. There are two common ways to get that:

Host select

bitbake meta-toolchain

Host select

bitbake <image recipe name> -c populate_sdk

The first method provides you the toolchain, you need to provide the file system to compile against, the second method provides both the toolchain and the file system along with -dev and -dbg packages installed.

Both ways you get an installation script.

The virtual machine has a cross-toolchain installed for each board, each generated with meta-toolchain. To use it just do:

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source /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/environment

to compile Linux user-space stuff. If you want to compile kernel or bootloader then do:

Host select

source /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/toolchain/environment-nofs

and you are ready to go.

Opkg¶

Opkg (Open PacKaGe Management) is a lightweight package management system. It is written in C and resembles apt/dpkg in operation. It is intended for use on embedded Linux devices and is used in this capacity in the OpenEmbedded and OpenWrt projects.

Useful commands:

update the list of available packages:

Board select

opkg update

list available packages:

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opkg list

list installed packages:

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opkg list-installed

install packages:

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opkg install <package 1> <package 2> ... <package n>

list package providing <file>

Board select

opkg search <file>

Show package information

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opkg info <package>

show package dependencies:

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opkg whatdepends <package>

remove packages:

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opkg remove <package 1> <package 2> ... <package n>

Force Bitbake to install Opkg in the final image¶

With some images, Bitbake (e.g. core-image-minimal) does not install the package management system in the final target. To force Bitbake to include it in the next build, edit your configuration file

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/conf/local.conf

and add this line to it:

Host select

IMAGE_FEATURES_append = " package-management"

Create a repository¶

opkg reads the list of packages repositories in configuration files located under /etc/opkg/. You can easily setup a new repository for your custom builds:

Install a web server on your machine, for example apache2:

Host select

sudo apt-get install apache2

Configure apache web server to “see” the packages you built, for example:

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sudo ln -s /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/ipk/ /var/www/zedboard-ipk

Create a new configuration file on the target (for example /etc/opkg/my_packages.conf) containing lines like this one to index the packages related to a particular machine:

Board select

src/gz zedboard-zynq7 http://192.168.0.100:8000/zedboard-ipk/zedboard-zynq7

To actually reach the virtual machine we set up a port forwarding mechanism in Chapter Virtual Machine so that every time the board communicates with the workstation on port 8000, VirtualBox actually turns the communication directly to the virtual machine operating system on port 80 where it finds apache waiting for it.

Connect the board and the personal computer you are developing on by means of an ethernet cable
Update the list of available packages on the target

Board select

opkg update

Update repository index¶

Sometimes, you need to force bitbake to rebuild the index of packages by means of:

Host select

bitbake package-index

The board¶

This chapter introduces the board, its hardware and how to boot it.

Hardware¶

The hardware documentation of ZedBoard can be found here:

http://www.zedboard.org/documentation/1521

Power-On¶

The board is shipped with an external power adapter with two different socket adapters.

Sort out the socket adapter that is right for you. Place it properly.

_images/board_poweron_place_socket_adapter.jpg

Push it and rotate it clockwise until you hear a slight click.

_images/board_poweron_socket_adapter_placed.jpg

To power-on the board, just connect the external power adapter to ZedBoard connector J20 and move switch SW8 to the “On” position.

Serial Console¶

On ZedBoard there is an USB-UART port (J14) labeled UART

which you can connect, by means of a micro-USB cable, to your personal computer.

Note

Every operating system has its own killer application to give you a serial terminal interface. In this guide, we are assuming your host operating system is Ubuntu.

On a Linux (Ubuntu) host machine, the console is seen as a ttyACMX device and you can access to it by means of an application like minicom.

Minicom needs to know the name of the serial device. The simplest way for you to discover the name of the device is by looking to the kernel messages, so:

clean the kernel messages

Host select

sudo dmesg -c

connect the mini-USB cable to the board already powered-on
display the kernel messages

Host select

dmesg

read the output

Host select

[29629.785374] usb 3-2: >new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[29629.806908] usb 3-2: >New USB device found, idVendor=04b4, idProduct=0008
[29629.806915] usb 3-2: >New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=4
[29629.806919] usb 3-2: >Product: Cypress-USB2UART-0123456
[29629.806922] usb 3-2: >Manufacturer: 2012 Cypress Semiconductor
[29629.806925] usb 3-2: >SerialNumber: 0201258B0816
[29629.858654] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: >This device cannot do calls on its own. It is not a modem.
[29629.858705] cdc_acm 3-2:1.0: >ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[29629.859345] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[29629.859347] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

As you can see, here the device has been recognized as /dev/ttyACM0.

Now that you know the device name, run minicom:

Host select

sudo minicom -ws

If minicom is not installed, you can install it with:

Host select

sudo apt-get install minicom

then you can setup your port with these parameters:

Host select

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| A -    Serial Device      : /dev/ttyACM0                              |
| B - Lockfile Location     : /var/lock                                 |
| C -   Callin Program      :                                           |
| D -  Callout Program      :                                           |
| E -    Bps/Par/Bits       : 115200 8N1                                |
| F - Hardware Flow Control : No                                        |
| G - Software Flow Control : No                                        |
|                                                                       |
|    Change which setting?                                              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
        | Screen and keyboard      |
        | Save setup as dfl        |
        | Save setup as..          |
        | Exit                     |
        | Exit from Minicom        |
        +--------------------------+

If on your system the device has not been recognized as /dev/ttyACM0, just replace /dev/ttyACM0 with the proper device.

Once you are done configuring the serial port, you are back to minicom main menu and you can select exit.

Let’s boot¶

To properly boot the board, you need several components:

an SD card,
file BOOT.BIN,
the Linux kernel image,
the device tree blob,
a bootscript, and
a root file system.

This section will guide you through all that stuff.

SD card¶

The SD card has to be prepared with two partitions:

a FAT16 partition able to contain the following files: BOOT.BIN, uEnv.txt, uImage and devicetree.dtb. 64MB will be more than enough
an EXT2 partition to contain the root file system

The SD card has to be inserted in J12.

Furthermore, on the board there is a set of switches related to the boot process. Verify ZedBoard boot mode (JP7-JP11) and MIO0 (JP6) jumpers are set like in the following picture:

that means boot from SD card, as described in the Hardware User Guide:

http://www.zedboard.org/documentation/1521

BOOT.BIN¶

To boot the board, the first thing you should care about is the boot file. The boot file is composed by up to three components:

a First Stage BootLoader,
a valid Bitstream (this is optional), and
u-boot.

Its name is BOOT.BIN.

This guide won’t treat the creation of the Bitstream and the First Stage BootLoader. For information about those components, please refer to Xilinx’s official documentation:

A guide on how to prepare file BOOT.BIN is available here:

http://www.wiki.xilinx.com/Prepare+boot+image

This SDK relies on a pre-generated BOOT.BIN, which can be downloaded from here:

Download file BOOT.BIN

BOOT.BIN has to be copied in the first partition of the SD card you use to boot the board.

Kernel¶

Yocto generates the Linux kernel image ready to be deployed on the board when you build virtual/kernel or an image (see Bitbake Section for more information on how to use Bitbake). You will find it inside directory:

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/uImage

uImage has to be copied to the first partition of the SD card.

Device Tree¶

The Flattened Device Tree (FDT) is a data structure for describing the hardware in a system. It is a derived from the device tree format used by Open Firmware to encapsulate platform information and convey it to the operating system. The operating system uses the FDT data to find and register the devices in the system.

The Device Tree Source (.dts) file is a text file containing the specification. The Device Tree Blob file (.dtb) is the blob version of the source one, and it is passed to the Linux Kernel at boot.

You can get the Device Tree Blob file from here:

Download devicetree.dtb

You can get the corresponding Device Tree Source from here:

Download devicetree.dts

Bootscript¶

With our flow, the default settings of u-boot will cause the Linux boot process to fail. You need to customize it by means of a file named uEnv.txt with these commands in it:

Host select

bootcmd=fatload mmc 0 0x3000000 uImage; fatload mmc 0 0x2A00000 devicetree.dtb; bootm 0x3000000 - 0x2A00000
uenvcmd=boot

Important

Make sure uEnv.txt is terminated by an empty line.

If you prefer, you can download file uEnv.txt from here:

Download file uEnv.txt

u-boot will look for uEnv.txt automatically at boot.

uEnv.txt has to be copied to the first partition of the SD card.

RootFS¶

Every time you build an image recipe with Bitbake you get a root file system. All the built root file systems are stacked under directory:

Host select

/home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/

To deploy the root file system, clear the second partition of the SD card and untar the root file system tarball Yocto generated directly to the second partition of the SD card.

Compose the SD card¶

Warning

To sum up, the first time you create your SD card, create two partitions on it. The first one has to be a FAT16 (name it boot), 64MB will be more than enough. Create the second partition as an EXT2 (name it rootfs), make it big enough to fill the free space on the disk size.

You are going to need the following files: BOOT.BIN, uEnv.txt, uImage, devicetree.dtb, <image>-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz. <image> is the recipe name used to build your image, for example: core-image-minimal-dev, so that the rootfs tarball name would be core-image-minimal-dev-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz.

Now, we assume that the first partition of the SD card gets mounted (in your SDK virtual machine) under:

Host select

/media/boot

while the second partition gets mounted under:

Host select

/media/rootfs

Warning

If that’s not the case for your configuration, please find out which are the proper mounting points for those two partitions on your system and replace them in the following instructions.

Furthermore, we assume you previously downloaded files BOOT.BIN, uEnv.txt, and devicetree.dtb inside directory:

Host select

/home/architech/Documents/zedboard

Ok then, we can finally deploy bootloader and kernel on the first partition of the SD card:

Host select

cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/BOOT.BIN /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/uEnv.txt /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/Documents/zedboard/devicetree.dtb /media/boot/
cp /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/uImage /media/boot/

and the root file system on the second partition of the SD card:

Host select

sudo rm -rf /media/rootfs/*
sudo tar -xzf /home/architech/architech_sdk/architech/zedboard/yocto/build/tmp/deploy/images/zedboard-zynq7/<image>-zedboard-zynq7.tar.gz -C /media/rootfs/

If you just need to install a new root file system on your SD card, you can execute just the last step.

Network¶

The network PHY is provided by Marvell’s chip 88E1518. Within Linux, you can see the network interface as eth0.

FAQ¶

Virtual Machine¶

What is the password for the default user of the virtual machine?¶

The password for the default user, that is architech, is:

Host

architech

What is sudo?¶

sudo is a program for Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to run programs/commands with the security privileges of another user, normally the superuser or root. Not all the users can call sudo, only the sudoers, architech (the default user of the virtual machine) user is a sudoer. When you run a command preceeded by sudo Linux will ask you the user password, for architech user the password is architech.

What is the password for user root?¶

By default, Ubuntu 12.04 32bit comes with no password defined for roor user, to set it run the following command:

Host

sudo passwd root

Linux will ask you (twice, the second time is just for confirmation) to write the password for user root.

Table Of Contents

Architech’s ZedBoard documentation¶

Notations¶

Chapters¶

Unboxing¶

Quick start guide¶

Install¶

Download VirtualBox¶

Create a new Virtual Machine¶

Setup the network¶

Customize the number of processors¶

Create a shared folder¶

Build¶

Deploy¶

Boot¶

Code¶

Debug¶

SDK Architecture¶

SDK¶

Virtual Machine¶

Download VirtualBox¶

Create a new Virtual Machine¶

Setup the network¶

Customize the number of processors¶

Create a shared folder¶

VM content¶

Splash screen¶

Create SDK¶

Installation¶

Install a clone of the virtual machine inside your native machine¶

Install just one board¶

Yocto¶

BSP¶

U-boot¶

Linux Kernel¶

Meta Layer¶

Root FS¶

Toolchain¶

Bitbake¶

Environment¶

Configuration files¶

Command line¶

Hob¶

Eclipse¶

Creating the Project¶

Building the Project¶

Deploying and Debugging the Application¶

Qt Framework¶

Qt Creator¶

Hello World!¶

Debug Hello World project¶

Cross compiler¶

Opkg¶

Force Bitbake to install Opkg in the final image¶

Create a repository¶

Update repository index¶

The board¶

Hardware¶

Power-On¶

Serial Console¶

Let’s boot¶

SD card¶

BOOT.BIN¶

Kernel¶

Device Tree¶

Bootscript¶

RootFS¶

Compose the SD card¶

Network¶

FAQ¶

Virtual Machine¶

What is the password for the default user of the virtual machine?¶

What is sudo?¶

What is the password for user root?¶

ZedBoard¶