How do I migrate SDK 5.02 from Qt 4.6.2 to Qt 4.7.1 -- can't find instructions that work

Hi Jeffrey,

Do you have a specific reason for going to QT 4.7.1?  We are sticking with 4.6.3 in our SDK, because there are performance issues with 4.7.x.  We are investigating those issues and will jump to 4.7.x when they are resolved.

Hi Jeff,

Yes, we have a real good reason for using QT 4.7.1 -- we are heavily reliant on Qt Quick and QML.

This new feature to Qt was introduced in QT 4.7.

We have several months of development on a Windows host and are now ready to transfer this to the embedded ARM9 Sitara AM1808 platform.

This is to be used in a very high volume project with high visibility (many millions of devices per year) in multiple languages: English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, etc.

We have no choice but to plow forward with QT 4.7.1, although we would prefer QT 4.7.2 or newer when it is available.

We cannot wait for the performance issue to be resolved right now. That is not an acceptable solution.

We presume that it will be resolved by the time we go into production and move on to a newer QT version than 4.7.1.

The TI docs indicate that it is not difficult to do.

I imagine, we just need the right "XYYZ" recipe to move forward.

With that being said, what support are you able to provide in integrating Qt 4.7.1 into SDK 5.02?

--jlf

Hi Jeffrey, 

We can support you to build and install 4.7.1.  We had previously tested 4.7.x for QT functionality and did not see any issues. I attempted to build 4.7.3 today:

I'm close to following this article:

http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/Building_Qt

I did not get the tslib error, so will post what I've done, but I'm still getting a build error. I should have an update tomorrow.

That is great news!

Qt 4.7.3 is very much desirable compared to anything else.

We are looking forward to your results.

Thank you very much for addressing this issue.

--jlf

Hi Jeffrey,

We use OpenEmbedded to build all the components for our SDK.  I'm working on the instructions on how to build.  It will support building 4.7.x version of QT as well as our delivered version 4.6.3. There are some instruction here to build the Smart Card support. It will be very similar to this article. AM180x: http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/SmartCard_Implementation_on_OMAPL_PRU_-_Software_Users_Guide

I am working on all the modifications you need from the above link to build QT. Sorry for the delay.

Jeff,

I will look at that reference material. In the mean time I have figured some things out myself.

I followed the directions in Arago about setting up an OE environment and cloning from the git repositories.

The BIG hole in the directions was setting up the machine configuration for the Sitara eXperimenter Reference Board.

There should be specific instructions for each machine that TI sells.

The claim that the developer can be fat/dumb/happy by just using the high quality tools provided without looking under the hood does not apply when we just try to build from scratch what was already provided as an image.

I can't wait to create our own custom root file system with our own application. Several new recipes are going to be needed for our stuff.

I was able to build the Arago images and found that Qt 4.6.2 was used because that is what was specified in the distro configuration file.

I created an overlay "arago-custom" and set that parameter to Qt 4.7.2, which Arago provided as an overlay from an upstream repository.

That worked without a hitch, but I stopped there because I knew you would provide Qt 4.7.3 after working out the details.

The learning curve for me was rather steep only because there were no instructions for handling my scenario from my starting point (including my machine type).

There is so much to learn but the knowledge base is spread all over the web.

I'm looking forward to your work product and will read the information you just referenced.

Thank you very much.

---

Jeff Franks

Jeff,

Thanks for the feedback.  It looks like you have made good progress on your own. There is a learning curve but with your feedback we hope to make it easier for others.

The previous link was for smart card and this one is for more general purpose OE development: http://arago-project.org/wiki/index.php/Building_with_Arago

If you look under $(ARAGO_HOME)/arago/conf/machine you can find all the machine types there.

Below is my setup for different machines from the file: "$(ARAGO_HOME)/arago/conf/local.conf" below I could uncomment the machine I would like to build for. In this case "am180x-evm":

#MACHINE ?= "arago"

# MACHINE = "omap3evm"

# MACHINE = "beagleboard"

# MACHINE = "davinci-dvevm"

#MACHINE = "am37x-evm"

#MACHINE = "am181x-evm"

MACHINE = "am180x-evm"

#MACHINE = "beagleboard"

Finally to set the version of QT you wish to build. In "$(ARAGO_HOME)/arago/conf/distro/arago.conf" you can find:

ANGSTROM_QT_VERSION = "4.6.3"

Just pick the version that you want to build.