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[FAQ] PROCESSOR-SDK-J784S4: How Do I Build Yocto Images and Packages for J7 Devices?
NOTE: This document pertains to the Processor Linux SDK v9.0, and many of these steps can be found within the "1.2. Building the SDK with Yocto" of the SDK documentation for each device.
In order to create custom images and install extra packages on J7 devices, you need to go through the Yocto build process. This FAQ will ideally serve as a document that answers most basic Yocto questions.
Setup
Download the SDK installer binary for your respective device
Issues/Fixes and Things to Note Before Running Bitbake
Issue
Fix
Computer keeps overheating/crashing when running bitbake.
Set the variables BB_NUMBER_THREADS and PARALLEL_MAKE within the conf/local.conf file to a smaller number (defaults to the number of cores in the computer).
A task failed while running bitbake.
Let the bitbake command finish and then rerun the command. There is a chance that a dependency was not installed in order or something unexpected happened that will be resolved in the next pass.
Bitbake server stops responding.
Delete bitbake.lock, bitbake.sock, and hashserve.sock before rerunning the bitbake command.
Building a Yocto image takes about 250 GB of storage.
It's recommended to run Yocto on a 1 TB or greater machine.
Building, Installing, and Booting an Image
Building an Image
Navigate to the root directory of the SDK
Remove the existing yocto-build folder (it may not have the most recent config files)
Install necessary packages for the build
Reconfigure to use bash
Pull the oe-layersetup github repository
Navigate into the yocto-build directory
Install the sources for the yocto build
Navigate into the build directory
Set the environment
Build the image
The following commands are a reflection of the above steps:
The machine depends on the device that you are trying to build an image for. The following is a table of different machines for the different J7 devices.
Machine
Supported Devices
j7200-evm
J7200 EVM, DRA821 EVM
j721e-evm
J721e EVM, DRA829 EVM, TDA4VM SK
j721s2-evm
J721s2 EVM, AM68 SK
j784s4-evm
J784s4 EVM, AM69 SK
The target depends on which image you want to build. The following is a table of different targets (there are more) and their descriptions:
Target
Description
tisdk-base-image
Arago TI SDK base image with test tools
tisdk-default-image
Arago TI SDK full filesystem image
tisdk-tiny-image
Arago TI SDK super minimal base image for initramfs
tisdk-adas-image
Arago TI SDK adas demos image
tisdk-edgeai-image
Arago TI SDK edgeai demos image
In order to build the adas and edgeai images, there is a slight variation in the above steps. Below is a reflection of the steps with the changes:
$ cd <sdk-path> $ rm -rf yocto-build $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get -f -y install \ git build-essential diffstat texinfo gawk chrpath socat doxygen \ dos2unix python3 bison flex libssl-dev u-boot-tools mono-devel \ mono-complete curl python3-distutils repo pseudo python3-sphinx \ g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 jq git-lfs pigz zstd liblz4-tool \ cpio file zstd lz4 # select "No" when asked to use dash $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash $ git clone https://git.ti.com/git/arago-project/oe-layersetup.git yocto-build $ cd yocto-build $ ./oe-layertool-setup.sh -f configs/processor-sdk-analytics/processor-sdk-analytics-<version>.txt $ cd build $ . conf/setenv # <adas-or-edgeai>: "adas" if building the tisdk-adas-image, "edgeai" if building the tisdk-edgeai-image $ echo 'EDGEAI_BRAND = "<adas-or-edgeai>"' >> conf/bblayers.conf $ MACHINE=<machine> bitbake -k <target>
Installing an Image
Yocto creates a .wic.xz file that you can etch onto an SD card for SD boot as well as some .tar.xz files that you can use. These files can be difficult to find if you're unfamiliar with Yocto. An easy way to find the files you're looking for is to navigate into the output folder and run 'find'. Following is an example (after building tisdk-default-image for the J784s4):
$ cd arago-tmp-default-glibc $ find -name "*.wic.xz" > ./deploy/images/j784s4-evm/tisdk-default-image-j784s4-evm.wic.xz
This wic file can be used to etch the built image onto an SD card.
Booting an Image
There is one final issue that you may run across before your board can boot from an SD card. Some devices are high security and will not boot with a general purpose bootloader. Following is a table of the devices:
Device
GP or HS-FS
J7200
GP
J721e
GP
J721s2 EVM
GP
J784s4 EVM
GP
SK-AM68
HS-FS
SK-AM69
HS-FS
To get the HS devices to boot, the bootloader binary must be changed. Following are the steps to do so:
$ cd <sd-card-boot-partition> $ mv tiboot3-<device>-hs-fs-evm.bin tiboot3.bin $ sync
After making this edit, the SD card should boot without issue.
Building and Installing a Package
Building a Package
Building a package follows a similar process to building an image, since it is also run through bitbake. In this example, we'll build the python3-pyqt5 package.
Since the python3-pyqt5 .bb file comes with the meta-qt repository, there is no need to download any new repositories or packages on the host machine.
Following are the steps to build and install the package:
Navigate to the root directory of the SDK
Navigate to the yocto-build/build directory
Set the environment
Build the package
The following commands are a reflection of the above steps:
$ cd <sdk-path> $ cd yocto-build/build $ . conf/setenv $ MACHINE=<machine> bitbake -k python3-pyqt5
Installing a Package
Yocto outputs a .ipk file that you can use to install a package on the target machine. Similar to the .wic.xz file when building an image, the .ipk file can also be difficult to find. Following is an example on how to find the .ipk file:
$ cd arago-tmp-default-glibc/deploy/ipk $ find -name "*python3-pyqt5*.ipk" > ./aarch64/python3-pyqt5_5.15.1-r0.0_aarch64.ipk
Since python3-pyqt5 depends on python3-sip3 and qtquickcontrols2-mkspecs (and these are not already installed), you'll need to find those as well:
To avoid having to manually install or remove packages, you can build a custom image that comes with the packages built into the image. There are some trainings that explain this in detail that can be found here:
NOTE: This document pertains to the Processor Linux SDK v9.1, and many of these steps can be found within the "1.2. Building the SDK with Yocto" of the SDK documentation for each device.
In order to create custom images and install extra packages on J7 devices, you need to go through the Yocto build process. This FAQ will ideally serve as a document that answers most basic Yocto questions.
Setup
Download the SDK installer binary for your respective device
Issues/Fixes and Things to Note Before Running Bitbake
Issue
Fix
Computer keeps overheating/crashing when running bitbake.
Set the variables BB_NUMBER_THREADS and PARALLEL_MAKE within the conf/local.conf file to a smaller number (defaults to the number of cores in the computer).
A task failed while running bitbake.
Let the bitbake command finish and then rerun the command. There is a chance that a dependency was not installed in order or something unexpected happened that will be resolved in the next pass.
Bitbake server stops responding.
Delete bitbake.lock, bitbake.sock, and hashserve.sock before rerunning the bitbake command.
Building a Yocto image takes about 250 GB of storage.
It's recommended to run Yocto on a 1 TB or greater machine.
Building, Installing, and Booting an Image
Building an Image
Navigate to the root directory of the SDK
Remove the existing yocto-build folder (it may not have the most recent config files)
Install necessary packages for the build
Reconfigure to use bash
Pull the oe-layersetup github repository
Navigate into the yocto-build directory
Install the sources for the yocto build
Navigate into the build directory
Set the environment
Build the image
The following commands are a reflection of the above steps:
The machine depends on the device that you are trying to build an image for. The following is a table of different machines for the different J7 devices.
Machine
Supported Devices
j7200-evm
J7200 EVM, DRA821 EVM
j721e-evm
J721e EVM, DRA829 EVM, TDA4VM SK
j721s2-evm
J721s2 EVM, AM68 SK
j784s4-evm
J784s4 EVM, AM69 SK
The target depends on which image you want to build. The following is a table of different targets (there are more) and their descriptions:
Target
Description
tisdk-base-image
Arago TI SDK base image with test tools
tisdk-default-image
Arago TI SDK full filesystem image
tisdk-tiny-image
Arago TI SDK super minimal base image for initramfs
tisdk-adas-image
Arago TI SDK adas demos image
tisdk-edgeai-image
Arago TI SDK edgeai demos image
In order to build the adas and edgeai images, there is a slight variation in the above steps. Below is a reflection of the steps with the changes:
$ cd <sdk-path> $ rm -rf yocto-build $ sudo apt-get update $ sudo apt-get -f -y install \
git build-essential diffstat texinfo gawk chrpath socat doxygen \
dos2unix python3 bison flex libssl-dev u-boot-tools mono-devel \
mono-complete curl python3-distutils repo pseudo python3-sphinx \
g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 jq git-lfs pigz zstd liblz4-tool \
cpio file zstd lz4 # select "No" when asked to use dash $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash $ git clone https://git.ti.com/git/arago-project/oe-layersetup.git yocto-build $ cd yocto-build $ ./oe-layertool-setup.sh -f configs/processor-sdk-analytics/processor-sdk-analytics-<version>.txt $ cd build $ . conf/setenv # <adas-or-edgeai>: "adas" if building the tisdk-adas-image, "edgeai" if building the tisdk-edgeai-image $ echo 'ARAGO_BRAND = "<adas-or-edgeai>"' >> conf/local.conf $ MACHINE=<machine> bitbake -k <target>
Installing an Image
Yocto creates a .wic.xz file that you can etch onto an SD card for SD boot as well as some .tar.xz files that you can use. These files can be difficult to find if you're unfamiliar with Yocto. An easy way to find the files you're looking for is to navigate into the output folder and run 'find'. Following is an example (after building tisdk-default-image for the J784s4):
$ cd deploy-ti $ find -name "*.wic.xz" > ./images/j784s4-evm/tisdk-default-image-j784s4-evm.wic.xz
This wic file can be used to etch the built image onto an SD card.
Booting an Image
There is one final issue that you may run across before your board can boot from an SD card. Some devices are high security and will not boot with a general purpose bootloader. Following is a table of the devices:
Device
GP or HS-FS
J7200
GP
J721e
GP
J721s2 EVM
GP
J784s4 EVM
GP
SK-AM68
HS-FS
SK-AM69
HS-FS
To get the HS devices to boot, the bootloader binary must be changed. Following are the steps to do so:
$ cd <sd-card-boot-partition> $ mv tiboot3-<device>-hs-fs-evm.bin tiboot3.bin $ sync
After making this edit, the SD card should boot without issue.
Building and Installing a Package
Building a Package
Building a package follows a similar process to building an image, since it is also run through bitbake. In this example, we'll build the python3-pyqt5 package.
Since the python3-pyqt5 .bb file comes with the meta-qt repository, there is no need to download any new repositories or packages on the host machine.
Following are the steps to build and install the package:
Navigate to the root directory of the SDK
Navigate to the yocto-build/build directory
Set the environment
Build the package
The following commands are a reflection of the above steps:
$ cd <sdk-path> $ cd yocto-build/build $ . conf/setenv $ MACHINE=<machine> bitbake -k python3-pyqt5
Installing a Package
Yocto outputs a .ipk file that you can use to install a package on the target machine. Similar to the .wic.xz file when building an image, the .ipk file can also be difficult to find. Following is an example on how to find the .ipk file:
$ cd arago-tmp-default-glibc/deploy/ipk $ find -name "*python3-pyqt5*.ipk" > ./aarch64/python3-pyqt5_5.15.1-r0.0_aarch64.ipk
Since python3-pyqt5 depends on python3-sip3 and qtquickcontrols2-mkspecs (and these are not already installed), you'll need to find those as well:
To avoid having to manually install or remove packages, you can build a custom image that comes with the packages built into the image. There are some trainings that explain this in detail that can be found here:
