Deploying and running a redpesk image for the NXP i.MX 8QuadXPlus MEK board

The NXP i.MX 8QuadXPlus Multisensory Enablement Kit (MEK) provides a platform for evaluation and development of the Arm® Cortex® A35 + Cortex-M4F based i.MX 8QuadXPlus, i.MX 8DualXPlus and i.MX 8DualX applications processors as well as the NXP PF8100 power management integrated circuit (PMIC) solution and sensors.

The i.MX 8X processor family is built with a high-level integration to support graphics, video, image processing, audio and voice functions, while meeting efficient performance requirements. The MEK is complete with highly optimized drivers and software, to enable broad-based applications for the embedded industrial and automotive markets.

Deploying a redpeskOS image on this kind of board consists of copying a disk image on an SDcard.

See i.MX8 specification for the NXP i.MX8 website.

Download images

See Download Images section.

Download NXP i.MX8QXP MEK 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/arz-1.1-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/imx8/'

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 sdcard

Plug your sdcard 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 #MYSDCARD
/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 sdcard

Prerequisites: 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/arz-1.1-update/images/smack/minimal/aarch64/imx8/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 NXP i.MX8 board

  • Plug in the SD Card into the board NXP i.MX8 inputs outputs

  • By default, the board will boot to the eMMC. You have to change the switch hardware boot like this:

NXP i.MX8 switch boot

  • Power on the board
  • Connect the USB-UART cable following the three pins beside the SD card socket

    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

     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 NXP i.MX8

     #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.