Deploying and running a redpesk image for the NXP i.MX 8M Nitrogen Nano SBC board

The Nitrogen i.MX 8M Nano is a board from Boundary Devices using a NXP i.MX8 SoC. It is based on an ARM architecture with 4 x Cortex A-53 and a Cortex-M7. Deploying a redpeskOS image on this kind of board consists of copying a disk image on an SD card. See the Nitrogen 8M Nano specification on the Boundary Devices website.

Download images

See Download Images section.

Download a Nitrogen i.MX 8M Nano SBC image from command line

Create a directory to download the image:

mkdir ~/redpeskimage
cd ~/redpeskimage

Then download the latest redpesk OS image with this command:

wget -r -nd -nc --no-parent -A "redpesk*smack*" 'https://download.redpesk.bzh/redpesk-lts/batz-2.0-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/nitrogen/'

Control the image integrity

Before doing anything, please control the integrity of the downloaded redpesk image. Example:

sha256sum -c redpesk*.tar.xz.sha256

redpesk*aarch64*.tar.xz: OK

Copying the image on your SD card

Plug your SD card and find it (be sure it is unmounted)

Copy the correct device path using the command below. It should be a hotplug device.

lsblk -dli -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL
DEVICE_TO_COPY='/dev/<hotplug_device>' #in the example it is /dev/sdc

Example:

$ lsblk -dli -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL
PATH         VENDOR   TYPE HOTPLUG MODEL
/dev/sda     ATA      disk       0 WDC_WD10SPZX-08Z10
/dev/sdc     TS-RDF5  disk       1 SD_Transcend #MYSD card
/dev/nvme0n1          disk       0 LITEON T11 512
DEVICE_TO_COPY=/dev/sdc

Or if only one device is hotpluggable on your computer:

# need jq
DEVICE_TO_COPY=$(lsblk -dlJ -o PATH,VENDOR,TYPE,HOTPLUG,MODEL | jq -r '.blockdevices[] | select(.hotplug == true).path')
echo $DEVICE_TO_COPY

Umount if needed

lsblk $DEVICE_TO_COPY
# need to umount each partition
sudo umount <part*>

Example:

$ lsblk /dev/sdc
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdc      8:32   1 14.6G  0 disk
├─sdc1   8:33   1  501M  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/0409-3A02
├─sdc2   8:34   1    1G  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/cd3c87ec-1011-4832-aef3-6be0ed3d3748
└─sdc3   8:35   1  2.5G  0 part /run/media/iotbzh/4e508264-8ce2-447f-a829-e4c31ea20047
$ sudo umount /run/media/iotbzh/*

Flash SD card

Requirements: device is plugged in, found, unmounted

  • Extract the image first 
    tar xJf redpesk*.tar.xz
  • Flash it using dd 
    sudo dd if="Redpesk-OS.img" of=$DEVICE_TO_COPY bs=4M status=progress
  • Or using bmaptool 
    bmaptool copy "Redpesk-OS.img" $DEVICE_TO_COPY

TIPS: Once your are used to flash your image, you could do it much faster in one single step using bmaptool like this:

bmaptool copy "https://download.redpesk.bzh/redpesk-lts/batz-2.0-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/nitrogen/image.raw.tar.xz" $DEVICE_TO_COPY

This will download, control integrity and flash the latest redpesk OS image on your device.

Connect to the Nitrogen 8M Nano SBC

  • Plug in the SD Card into the board. Nitrogen 8M Nano inputs outputs

  • By default, the board will boot to the eMMC. You may have to change the boot switch for the SD card if wanted.
  • Power on the board.
  • Connect the console cable to have a serial access to the board.

    use dmesg to see the name of the USB plugged

    [    7.567111] usb 1-2.1.2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB1

  • Use picocom (or minicom depending on your tools!)

     sudo picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB1

    NOTE: Default root password is root.

  • Getting the address of the board to be able to use a ssh connection

    Connect an Ethernet cable between computer and the Nitrogen 8M Nano SBC.

     #on board
 ip -c a

     # on computer
 ssh root@<ip_board>

Installing a package

Your board is now ready to boot redpesk OS. You can install any packages and/or your own packages.

Please refer to section Application deployment for more details.