[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thierry Bultel]

Hi,
I have 2 questions around the Buildroot support for iMX6 from Freescale,
especially around graphics.

1) Is there current work on that for a coming release ?
I have noticed that openbricks seem to already have integrated the 
imx6-lib and xdriver-xf86-video-imx

2) I have trying to get both of them integrated in buildroot
The imx6-lib, which will be a 'generic-package', needs includes of the 
target kernel; these includes are not in the sysroot.

What is the most appropriate way to proceed ? The underlying Makefile
has got a "INCLUDE" var to be set, shall I point it to my linux-custom 
build directory ? That does not seem very good.

Thanks
Thierry

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Thierry Bultel,

On Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:14:46 +0100, Thierry Bultel wrote:

> I have 2 questions around the Buildroot support for iMX6 from
> Freescale, especially around graphics.
> 
> 1) Is there current work on that for a coming release ?

Everything is in the Buildroot Git repository, and besides that I
haven't heard of people working on i.MX6 "advanced" features. We have a
defconfig for the nitrogen6x board that was done by Peter, but I guess
Peter hasn't investigated the entire graphics stack of i.MX6 for now.

It would indeed be really, really great to improve i.MX6 support in
Buildroot (and also for other SoCs).

> I have noticed that openbricks seem to already have integrated the 
> imx6-lib and xdriver-xf86-video-imx
> 
> 2) I have trying to get both of them integrated in buildroot
> The imx6-lib, which will be a 'generic-package', needs includes of
> the target kernel; these includes are not in the sysroot.
> 
> What is the most appropriate way to proceed ? The underlying Makefile
> has got a "INCLUDE" var to be set, shall I point it to my
> linux-custom build directory ? That does not seem very good.

To me, it's the right solution. If you have userspace code that depends
on very specific kernel headers that are not part of a traditional
toolchain, then pointing to the kernel sources is the only solution.

Of course, it means that the package must "depends on BR2_LINUX_KERNEL"
and have <foobar>_DEPENDENCIES = linux.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com> writes:

Hi,

 >> 1) Is there current work on that for a coming release ?

 Thomas> Everything is in the Buildroot Git repository, and besides that I
 Thomas> haven't heard of people working on i.MX6 "advanced" features. We have a
 Thomas> defconfig for the nitrogen6x board that was done by Peter, but I guess
 Thomas> Peter hasn't investigated the entire graphics stack of i.MX6 for now.

Indeed. I've only touched the open source bits. From the looks of it, I
doubt I will be able to spend much time on further imx6 support during
the 2013.02 cycle - So help would be ver much appreciated.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thierry Bultel]

Le 06/12/2012 12:48, Thomas Petazzoni a ?crit :
> Dear Thierry Bultel,

Dear Thomas,

> 
> On Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:14:46 +0100, Thierry Bultel wrote:
> 
>> I have 2 questions around the Buildroot support for iMX6 from
>> Freescale, especially around graphics.
>>
>> 1) Is there current work on that for a coming release ?
> 
> Everything is in the Buildroot Git repository, and besides that I
> haven't heard of people working on i.MX6 "advanced" features. We have a
> defconfig for the nitrogen6x board that was done by Peter, but I guess
> Peter hasn't investigated the entire graphics stack of i.MX6 for now.
> 
> It would indeed be really, really great to improve i.MX6 support in
> Buildroot (and also for other SoCs).

As soon as I have something working, I will obviously submit
a patch for it.

> 
>> I have noticed that openbricks seem to already have integrated the 
>> imx6-lib and xdriver-xf86-video-imx
>>
>> 2) I have trying to get both of them integrated in buildroot
>> The imx6-lib, which will be a 'generic-package', needs includes of
>> the target kernel; these includes are not in the sysroot.
>>
>> What is the most appropriate way to proceed ? The underlying Makefile
>> has got a "INCLUDE" var to be set, shall I point it to my
>> linux-custom build directory ? That does not seem very good.
> 
> To me, it's the right solution. 
Ok
If you have userspace code that depends
> on very specific kernel headers that are not part of a traditional
> toolchain, then pointing to the kernel sources is the only solution.
> 
> Of course, it means that the package must "depends on BR2_LINUX_KERNEL"
> and have <foobar>_DEPENDENCIES = linux.

Thanks for the tip.
I have (at least) 2 packages to build.

- The first one was the imx6-lib, that I have added under the Graphics
section, as a generic-package, and

define IMX6_LIB_BUILD_CMDS
      $(MAKE) -C $(@D) all PLATFORM=IMX6Q CROSS_COMPILE=$(TARGET_CROSS)
INCLUDE=$(INCLUDE)
endef

... was just what was needed to build it succesfully.


The second one is the xdriver_xf86-video-imx
It is built as an autotools-package
But since the 'configure' intrisincs are not really my favorite food, I
am looking how to add the needed INCLUDE to the CFLAGS that are
automatically given to it.
Could you please advise me on how to do it in the cleanest way ?

Regards
Thierry

> 
> Thomas

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Thierry Bultel,

On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 08:20:13 +0100, Thierry Bultel wrote:

> As soon as I have something working, I will obviously submit
> a patch for it.

Great!

> Thanks for the tip.
> I have (at least) 2 packages to build.
> 
> - The first one was the imx6-lib, that I have added under the Graphics
> section, as a generic-package, and
> 
> define IMX6_LIB_BUILD_CMDS
>       $(MAKE) -C $(@D) all PLATFORM=IMX6Q
> CROSS_COMPILE=$(TARGET_CROSS) INCLUDE=$(INCLUDE)
> endef

Sounds good. We'll do a complete review when you post the entire patch,
but it sounds ok in principle.

> The second one is the xdriver_xf86-video-imx
> It is built as an autotools-package
> But since the 'configure' intrisincs are not really my favorite food,
> I am looking how to add the needed INCLUDE to the CFLAGS that are
> automatically given to it.
> Could you please advise me on how to do it in the cleanest way ?

Depends on whether you need to pass this environment variables at
configure time or at build time.

For configure time:

<foobar>_CONF_ENV = \
	INCLUDE="blabla" \
	CFLAGS="$(TARGET_CFLAGS) -blabla"

For build time:

<foobar>_MAKE_ENV = \
	INCLUDE="blabla" \
	CFLAGS="$(TARGET_CFLAGS) -blabla"

See also
http://buildroot.org/downloads/manual/manual.html#_infrastructure_for_autotools_based_packages

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Samuel Martin]

Hi Thierry, Thomas, all,

2012/12/7 Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>:
> Dear Thierry Bultel,
>
> On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 08:20:13 +0100, Thierry Bultel wrote:
>
>> As soon as I have something working, I will obviously submit
>> a patch for it.
>
> Great!
>
>> Thanks for the tip.
>> I have (at least) 2 packages to build.
>>
>> - The first one was the imx6-lib, that I have added under the Graphics
>> section, as a generic-package, and

Some people around Buildroot, like the Armadeus folks, have already
done part of the imx-lib integration.
It seems they presently support imx-lib for both imx27 and imx51.

You could certainly give a look at their work, might be usefull ;-):
http://armadeus.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=armadeus/armadeus;a=blob;f=patches/buildroot/2012.11/174-imx-lib-add_package.patch;hb=HEAD


Regards,

-- 
Sam

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Samuel Martin,

On Fri, 7 Dec 2012 09:35:33 +0100, Samuel Martin wrote:

> Some people around Buildroot, like the Armadeus folks, have already
> done part of the imx-lib integration.
> It seems they presently support imx-lib for both imx27 and imx51.
> 
> You could certainly give a look at their work, might be usefull ;-):
> http://armadeus.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=armadeus/armadeus;a=blob;f=patches/buildroot/2012.11/174-imx-lib-add_package.patch;hb=HEAD

Any idea why they don't submit their work upstream?

They have a huge number of patches for Buildroot in
http://armadeus.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=armadeus/armadeus;a=tree;f=patches/buildroot/2012.11;hb=HEAD
and they don't submit anything. It's sad.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Samuel Martin]

Hi Thomas,

2012/12/7 Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>:
> Dear Samuel Martin,
>
> On Fri, 7 Dec 2012 09:35:33 +0100, Samuel Martin wrote:
>
>> Some people around Buildroot, like the Armadeus folks, have already
>> done part of the imx-lib integration.
>> It seems they presently support imx-lib for both imx27 and imx51.
>>
>> You could certainly give a look at their work, might be usefull ;-):
>> http://armadeus.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=armadeus/armadeus;a=blob;f=patches/buildroot/2012.11/174-imx-lib-add_package.patch;hb=HEAD
>
> Any idea why they don't submit their work upstream?
>
> They have a huge number of patches for Buildroot in
> http://armadeus.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=armadeus/armadeus;a=tree;f=patches/buildroot/2012.11;hb=HEAD
> and they don't submit anything. It's sad.

They are working on it, see:
http://www.armadeus.com/wiki/index.php?title=Buildroot_Mainline_integration

And here, the WIP branch of what I've already done, and I plan to post shortly:
https://github.com/tSed/buildroot/commits/sma/armadeus-integration


It's just a slow process, not necessarly time-to-market-friendly at
first look! ;-)


Regards,

-- 
Sam

[Buildroot] Support of iMX6 hardware ?

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Samuel Martin,

On Fri, 7 Dec 2012 09:55:41 +0100, Samuel Martin wrote:

> They are working on it, see:
> http://www.armadeus.com/wiki/index.php?title=Buildroot_Mainline_integration

Great.

> And here, the WIP branch of what I've already done, and I plan to
> post shortly:
> https://github.com/tSed/buildroot/commits/sma/armadeus-integration

Good. Please submit step by step: if you spam us with hundred patches,
we'll never see the end of it.

> It's just a slow process, not necessarly time-to-market-friendly at
> first look! ;-)

The time-to-market excuse is a bad excuse because it is very often
wrong, especially for Buildroot where the barrier to entry is quite
low (writing Buildroot code that gets accepted is quite easy). Armadeus
has been carrying those Buildroot patches for multiple years, and
everytime they upgrade to a newer Buildroot release, they have to
upgrade those patches as well. I am pretty sure that the time they have
spent upgrading those patches and upgrading their Buildroot versions is
significantly larger than the time it would have taken to get those
improvements merged in the first place.

Best regards,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com