Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) Engineering Build for Versatile Express (Android)

ARM’s customers should use the latest ARM Member Build here:

• http://releases.linaro.org/latest/members/arm/android/images/vexpress-lsk

ARM Member Builds capture the latest content and information at that ARM wishes to present to it’s partners and users. The Member Build contains a more complete set of release notes, installation and build instructions.

The Linaro Stable Kernel (LSK) is produced, validated and released by Linaro and is based on the linux stable kernel tree.

Linaro releases monthly binary images for the ARM Versatile Express including support for Cortex-A9, Cortex-A5, TC2 (big.LITTLE) CoreTiles and Fast Models.

For support matters related to ARM hardware or firmware images downloaded from ARM sites, please contact ARM support

This build includes is targeted at both Versatile Express and Fast Models. The images are able to boot A5, A9 and TC2 using UEFI. Sources are also made available so you can build your own images (see the ‘Building from Source’ tab).

Where To Find More Information

More information on Linaro can be found on our website.

Feedback and Support

Subscribe to the important Linaro mailing lists and join our IRC channels to stay on top of Linaro development.

• Linaro Android Development mailing list
• Linaro Android IRC channel on irc.freenode.net at #linaro-android

• Landing Team bug reports should be filed in Bugzilla
  • You will need to login to your Linaro account. If you do not have an account or are having problems, email its@linaro.org for help.
• More general bug reports should be filed in Bugzilla against the individual packages that are affected.
• Questions? ask Linaro.
• Interested in commercial support? inquire at Linaro support

Linaro provides two methods for installing Linaro binary builds:

1. Using a pre-built image, which you can download
2. Assembling your own image using provided components

Pre-Installation Steps

Before any installation begins, it is important that you ensure your Versatile Express board has the latest firmware and boot loader installed. Please check the “Firmware Update” tab on this page for the latest updates and installation instructions.

Using pre-built image

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit or newer on your desktop PC, which you can download from www.ubuntu.com
• 4GB SD card or larger
• Latest firmware installed onto the Versatile Express. Please see “Firmware Update” tab
• This release pre-built image (vexpress.img.bz2), which you can downloaded from the above list of artifacts or just click here

Installation Steps

• Unzip the downloaded pre-built image
• Insert SD card into your PC and note the assigned '/dev/sdX'

dmesg
SDCARD=/dev/sdX # sdcard found from dmesg above
bzcat vexpress.img.bz2 | sudo dd bs=64k of=$SDCARD

When the image is created, skip down to the section “Booting the image”.

Note: Windows users may use the Image Writer for Windows

---

Building a custom image using pre-built components.

Sometimes, you may wish to build your own custom image for a Versatile Express. Perhaps you wish to use a more recent snapshot of the hardware pack or take the latest Android build. Whatever the reason, you will want to use the Linaro Image Tools to create a custom image.

Using components to generate the image will yield the same functionality found in the pre-built image of the same release.

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit or newer on your desktop PC, which you can download from www.ubuntu.com
• Download Artifacts from above or use the following command in your terminal

wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/boot.tar.bz2
wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/system.tar.bz2
wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/userdata.tar.bz2

• Download Linaro image tools which can be obtained in two ways:

• Method 1: Install them from the Linaro Image Tools PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linaro-image-tools

• Method 2: Building from source

wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/components/platform/linaro-image-tools/linaro-image-tools-${YYYY}.${MM}.tar.gz

• Insert SD card and note the assigned '/dev/sdX' or '/dev/mmcblk0'

dmesg | less

Look for a line that looks like the following at the end of the log

[288582.790722] sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3 sdc4 <sdc5 sdc6 >

Or, if your machine uses '/dev/mmcblkX', you may see a line line this:

[10770.938042] mmcblk0: p1 p2 p3 p4 < p5 p6 >

WARNING: In the next step, make sure you use /dev/"whatever you see above". You can erase your hard drive with the wrong parameter.

• Create media

linaro-android-media-create --mmc /dev/sdX --dev vexpress --boot boot.tar.bz2 --system system.tar.bz2 --userdata userdata.tar.bz2

Booting the image

After the media create tool has finished executing, remove the SD card from your PC and insert it into the Versatile Express board.

Before you can boot the image you will need to install the UEFI boot loader into NOR flash and update the Versatile MMC card configuration files. The instructions on the Firmware Update tab provide information on how to do this and how to configure UEFI to specify the SD card as a boot device.

Advanced Setup for Benchmarking

Advanced users of Versatile Express may wish to perform benchmarking tests on the board.

Booting with the root filesystem on a USB mass storage device is more efficient both in terms of electrical power and processing speed. Unfortunately, UEFI does not support booting the kernel from USB. In order to achieve this, we recommend that you install the kernel onto SD card and the root filesystem to USB mass storage.

The instructions below will create two identical images: one on SD card and one on USB mass storage. The user is able to choose which device the kernel uses for the root filesystem by adding a command line parameter. By default, the android kernel will expect the root filesystem to be read from the SD card. Adding the parameter “androidboot.hardware=arm-versatileexpress-usb” to the command line will over-ride this behaviour and instruct the kernel to read the root filesystem from USB.

Before following these instructions, ensure that you have both an SD card and a USB mass storage device of at least 4GB inserted into your Linux machine.

Using a pre-built image

Follow the instructions above for creating an image on an SD card. Then repeat the instructions using the device path for your USB device. For example:

dmesg
SDCARD=/dev/sdX # sdcard found from dmesg above
USBMS=/dev/sdY # USB device found from dmesg above
bzcat vexpress.img.bz2 | sudo dd bs=64k of=$SDCARD
bzcat vexpress.img.bz2 | sudo dd bs=64k of=$USBMS

Using linaro-android-media-create

First the user should run linaro-android-media-create as described above. Then run it again with a USB mass storage device. This will create two release images: one on the SD card and the other on the USB device.

For example:

dmesg
SDCARD=/dev/sdX # sdcard found from dmesg above
USBMS=/dev/sdY # USB device found from dmesg above
linaro-android-media-create --mmc $SDCARD --dev vexpress --boot boot.tar.bz2 --system system.tar.bz2 --userdata userdata.tar.bz2
linaro-android-media-create --mmc $USBMS  --dev vexpress --boot boot.tar.bz2 --system system.tar.bz2 --userdata userdata.tar.bz2

Booting your system with the advanced setup

Insert the SD card into the card slot on the Versatile Express board and insert the USB device into one of the USB device slots on the board. The USB slots are located below the ethernet port on the rear panel.

Boot the board using the standard UEFI firmware setup as described in the Firmware Update tab.

When UEFI starts, you will need to interrupt the boot countdown and edit the configuration to add the following text to the end of the kernel commandline:

androidboot.hardware=arm-versatileexpress-usb

Instructions for updating the UEFI configuration can be found on the UEFI wiki

Accessing Source Code

Linaro Android JB Source Code

Run the linaro_android_build_cmds.sh, it will download the entire source code for both Android JB and the kernel and attempt to build it.

The pinned and source manifests can be found here:

• Pinned Manifest (?)
• Source Manifest

Compiling Linaro Android RootFS+Kernel

The following simple steps download, install and compile a complete Linaro Android distribution, including the Kernel

• Download and install Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit or newer (download)
• Install the following packages:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install zip curl flex bison build-essential git-core gnupg gperf zlib1g-dev libx11-dev x11proto-core-dev \
gcc-multilib g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 ia32-libs lib32z-dev gcc-4.5 g++-4.5 cpp-4.5 gcc-4.5-multilib g++-4.5-multilib \
uboot-mkimage uuid-dev openjdk-7-jdk ant lib32ncurses5-dev xsltproc
sudo update-alternatives --config java
sudo update-alternatives --config javac
sudo update-alternatives --config javadoc

• Download the Android building script for this release from here or from the list of artifacts listed above.

• Run the script

chmod a+x linaro_android_build_cmds.sh
./linaro_android_build_cmds.sh -m pinned-manifest.xml

Installing Android JB on your board

• Insert SD card and note the assigned '/dev/sdX' or '/dev/mmcblk0'

dmesg | less

Look for a line that looks like the following at the end of the log

[288582.790722] sdc: sdc1 sdc2 sdc3 sdc4 <sdc5 sdc6 >

Or, if your machine uses ‘/dev/mmcblkX’, you may see a line line this:

[10770.938042] mmcblk0: p1 p2 p3 p4 < p5 p6 >

WARNING: In the next step, make sure you use /dev/“whatever you see above”. You can erase your hard drive with the wrong parameter.

• Create media

cd android/out/target/product/
sudo linaro-android-media-create --mmc /dev/sdX --dev vexpress --boot boot.tar.bz2 --system system.tar.bz2 --userdata userdata.tar.bz2

• Insert the SD card into your Versatile Express board and reboot it

If UEFI is already configured to boot a Linaro Android image, it will boot from the SD card. If not, follow the instructions in the section: Configure UEFI found on the Linaro wiki.

Compiling and installing your Kernel

Prerequisites

• Download and install Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit or newer (download)
• Install the following packages by typing:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi curl git libncurses5-dev

• Create a working subdirectory
• Download the auto build script for this release from the list of artifacts above (the kernel configuration will be automatically downloaded).
• Run the build script

chmod a+x linaro_kernel_build_cmds.sh
./linaro_kernel_build_cmds.sh

Note: When you run menuconfig, make sure you go to System Type -> Versatile Express platform type and make sure that both options are enabled.

[*] Versatile Express Cortex-A9x4 tile
[*] Device Tree support for Versatile Express platforms

This will mean that the same kernel will run on A5, A9, TC2 and various fast models.

Installing your kernel

This section is common for both Android and OpenEmbedded

• Create the Device Tree blob if you don’t have one in your Linaro image (note, the A9 Core Tile boots using an ATAGS kernel):

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- dtbs

• Insert the SD card containing the Linaro disk image
• Copy the kernel onto the memory card

cp arch/arm/boot/uImage /media/boot/

• Copy the device tree blob
  • For A9 CoreTile: no device tree blob is needed
  • For A5 CoreTile: cp arch/arm/boot/vexpress-v2p-ca5s.dtb /media/boot/v2p-ca5s.dtb
  • For A15 CoreTile (TC1): cp arch/arm/boot/vexpress-v2p-ca15-tc1.dtb /media/boot/v2p-ca15-tc1.dtb
  • For A15_A7 CoreTile: (TC2): cp arch/arm/boot/vexpress-v2p-ca15_a7.dtb /media/boot/v2p-ca15-tc2.dtb

• Eject the memory card eject /media/boot

• Insert the memory card into the Versatile Express board and power it on

Ensure that you update your Versatile Express board firmware to the latest version. To update your VE board firmware, please follow the instructions below:

• Clone the Linaro Versatile Express Firmware repository
• Connect and mount your Versatile Express motherboard USB mass storage device to your PC
• Remove all of the existing files from the USB mass storage device
• Copy the Linaro Firmware to the board

For example:

git clone git://git.linaro.org/arm/vexpress-firmware.git
rm -rf /media/VEMSD/*
cp -R vexpress-firmware/* /media/VEMSD

Once you have finished copying the firmware over:

• Safely unmount the Versatile Express motherboard
• Reboot the Versatile Express board
• At the ARM Boot Loader “Cmd> “ prompt, type the following commands:

Cmd> flash
Cmd> eraseall
Cmd> exit
Cmd> reboot

• You may need to configure UEFI to boot from the image that you’ve created. See the UEFI page on the Linaro Wiki for more details on configuring UEFI.
• You may want to set /media/VEMSD/config.txt AUTORUN to TRUE to be make the CoreTile boot from power on.
• For TC2, you should set the DIP swich closest to the black reset button down so that the Boot Monitor runs the boot script on power on.
• Versatile Express version 5.2 contains the original firmware and documentation for the Versatile Express platform
• Please contact support@arm.com for any issues related their firmware
• Please contact Linaro for any issues related to booting this release on the Versatile Express platform.

Using TC2 as an A7-only or A15-only board

Configure the Firmware

It is possible to configure a TC2 development board as an A7 or A15 only board. To do this, the developer should modify the /SITE1/HBI0249A/board.txt file on the Versatile Express firmware drive, usually mounted at /media/VEMSD.

The relevant register is CFGREG6 on pages 78-81 of the following TRM:
http://infocenter.arm.com/help/topic/com.arm.doc.ddi0503e/DDI0503E_v2p_ca15_a7_tc2_trm.pdf

You should add the following setting in board.txt:

SCC: 0x018 0x1FFFFFFF     ; CFGRW6 - Reset register default (both clusters active)

- or -

SCC: 0x018 0x00001FFF     ; CFGRW6 - A15-only config

- or -

SCC: 0x018 0x1FFFF000     ; CFGRW6 - A7-only config

Remember to update TOTALSCCS, eg, if it was 32 and you’ve added one register, it becomes 33:

TOTALSCCS: 33                   ;Total Number of SCC registers

Configure the Device Tree

Once the hardware is booting as an A7 or A15 only board, next you need to remove the unused CPU nodes from the device tree.

In the kernel source tree, edit arch/arm/boot/dts/vexpress-v2p-ca15_a7.dts and remove the unused CPUs from this section:

   cpus {
        #address-cells = <1>;
        #size-cells = <0>;

       cpu2: cpu@2 {
            device_type = "cpu";
            compatible = "arm,cortex-a7";
            reg = <0x100>;
            cluster = <&cluster1>;
            core = <&core2>;
            clock-frequency = <800000000>;
            cci-control-port = <&cci_control2>;
        };

       cpu3: cpu@3 {
            device_type = "cpu";
            compatible = "arm,cortex-a7";
            reg = <0x101>;
            cluster = <&cluster1>;
            core = <&core3>;
            clock-frequency = <800000000>;
            cci-control-port = <&cci_control2>;
        };

       cpu4: cpu@4 {
            device_type = "cpu";
            compatible = "arm,cortex-a7";
            reg = <0x102>;
            cluster = <&cluster1>;
            core = <&core4>;
            clock-frequency = <800000000>;
            cci-control-port = <&cci_control2>;
        };

       cpu0: cpu@0 {
            device_type = "cpu";
            compatible = "arm,cortex-a15";
            reg = <0>;
            cluster = <&cluster0>;
            core = <&core0>;
            clock-frequency = <1000000000>;
            cci-control-port = <&cci_control1>;
        };

       cpu1: cpu@1 {
            device_type = "cpu";
            compatible = "arm,cortex-a15";
            reg = <1>;
            cluster = <&cluster0>;
            core = <&core1>;
            clock-frequency = <1000000000>;
            cci-control-port = <&cci_control1>;
        };
    };

Next, you need to remove the GIC entries that are associated with the removed CPUs, eg:

   gic: interrupt-controller@2c001000 {
        compatible = "arm,cortex-a15-gic", "arm,cortex-a9-gic";
        #interrupt-cells = <3>;
        #address-cells = <0>;
        interrupt-controller;
        reg = <0 0x2c001000 0 0x1000>,
              <0 0x2c002000 0 0x1000>,
              <0 0x2c004000 0 0x2000>,
              <0 0x2c006000 0 0x2000>;
        interrupts = <1 9 0xf04>;

       gic-cpuif@0 {
            compatible = "arm,gic-cpuif";
            cpuif-id = <0>;
            cpu = <&cpu0>;
        };

       gic-cpuif@1 {
            compatible = "arm,gic-cpuif";
            cpuif-id = <1>;
            cpu = <&cpu1>;
        };

       gic-cpuif@2 {
            compatible = "arm,gic-cpuif";
            cpuif-id = <2>;
            cpu = <&cpu2>;
        };

       gic-cpuif@3 {
            compatible = "arm,gic-cpuif";
            cpuif-id = <3>;
            cpu = <&cpu3>;
        };

       gic-cpuif@4 {
            compatible = "arm,gic-cpuif";
            cpuif-id = <4>;
            cpu = <&cpu4>;
        };
    };

Finally, you need to re-compile the DTS file and copy it to the SD card used to boot the system, eg:

make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- dtbs
cp arch/arm/boot/dts/vexpress-v2p-ca15_a7.dtb /media/boot/v2p-ca15-tc2.dtb

This release was boot tested on FVP A15×4 and A15×4-A7×4 models. No rigorous testing was carried out. This build is expected to run on other models. No UEFI binary exists for A15-A7 models; in this case, the A15 binary can be used, but the A7 CPUs will not be available

Prerequisites

• Install the model(s) you wish to run. You must have a valid license and the environment set up to run models
• Install Linaro image tools

Install Linaro Image Tools

Linaro Image Tools contain scripts that allow you to combine multiple components into a single Android image. The components are:

• boot.tar.bz2 – contains the kernel and boot loaders
• system.tar.bz2 – contains the entire system files and general OS
• userdata.tar.bz2 – contains sample data and tests

There are multiple ways you can get the latest Linaro Image Tools:

• Method 1: Install them from the Linaro Image Tools PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linaro-maintainers/tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linaro-image-tools

• Method 2: Build from source

wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/components/platform/linaro-image-tools/linaro-image-tools-${YYYY}.${MM}.tar.gz

Create a 2GB image file

Fast Models will only deal with file systems up to 2GB in size, however the Linaro pre-built image for Android requires a 4GB filesystem. Therefore, we will build our own image using the pre-built artifacts (displayed above)

The following command downloads all the Android OS components necessary to make up a complete Android image.

wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/boot.tar.bz2
wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/system.tar.bz2
wget http://releases.linaro.org/latest/android/vexpress-lsk/userdata.tar.bz2

Using the linaro-android-media-create, which is part of the linaro-image-tools, you can combine all the components into a single image.

linaro-android-media-create --image-file linaro.img --image-size 2000M --dev vexpress --boot boot.tar.bz2 --system system.tar.bz2 --userdata userdata.tar.bz2
tar jxvf boot.tar.bz2

Run Fast Models with UEFI

The instructions for running UEFI on the various models are very similar. The two differences are the UEFI binary and the model used. Follow the model specific instruction below, then proceed to the generic instructions in the section “Run the model with UEFI”. Make sure that the model binary is on your path, or alter the MODEL variable definition to include the path to the binary.

Run A9×4 model with UEFI

MODEL=FVP_VE_Cortex-A9_MPx4
UEFI=boot/rtsm/uefi_rtsm_ve-ca9x4.bin

Run A15×1 model with UEFI

MODEL=FVP_VE_Cortex-A15x1
UEFI=boot/rtsm/uefi_rtsm_ve-ca15.bin

Run A15×2 model with UEFI

MODEL=FVP_VE_Cortex-A15x2
UEFI=boot/rtsm/uefi_rtsm_ve-ca15.bin

Run A15×4 model with UEFI

MODEL=FVP_VE_Cortex-A15x4
UEFI=boot/rtsm/uefi_rtsm_ve-ca15.bin

Run the model with UEFI

touch uefi-vars.fd # create the file if it doesn't already exist

$MODEL \
-C motherboard.flashloader0.fname=$UEFI \
-C motherboard.flashloader1.fname=uefi-vars.fd \
-C motherboard.flashloader1.fnameWrite=uefi-vars.fd \
-C motherboard.mmc.p_mmc_file=linaro.img \
-C motherboard.pl011_uart0.unbuffered_output=true \
-C motherboard.smsc_91c111.enabled=1 \
-C motherboard.hostbridge.userNetworking=1