2412454_en-US

[#1]

PowerPC support for Wrynose SDK

Hi,

We are looking to migrate our T4240rdb based board from Dunfell to Wrynose Yocto SDK. Are PowerPC boards supported in Wrynose SDK ?

If not what are our options to get support for PowerPC boards.

Thanks,

Subbarao Nalajala

Senior Engineer at Thales Group

Re: PowerPC support for Wrynose SDK

Hello,

PowerPC/T4240RDB boards are NOT supported in the NXP Wrynose Yocto SDK. This is a well-established limitation that applies to all newer NXP Yocto releases beyond Dunfell.

Why PowerPC is Not Supported in Wrynose

NXP's Wrynose SDK (Yocto 6.0) is exclusively targeted at ARM-based i.MX and Layerscape processors. The QorIQ T-Series (including T4240) uses the Power Architecture (e6500 core), which has not been carried forward into the newer Yocto SDK releases. This is consistent with NXP's broader strategy:

"QorIQ SDK is a fully featured and mature Yocto-based software kit for QorIQ PowerPC-based P-series and T-series family of processors... Layerscape SDK is the hybrid Ubuntu-based software kit for the Layerscape family of processors, and going forward will be the primary delivery mechanism for the most up-to-date software on Layerscape platforms."

The last officially NXP-supported Yocto release for T4240RDB is Dunfell (Yocto 3.1). Newer Yocto releases (Scarthgap, Wrynose, etc.) do not include T4240RDB or other PowerPC T-Series boards.

A known build error also confirms this at the glibc level — attempting to build for the e6500 PowerPC64 architecture in post-Dunfell Yocto results in:

configure: error: The e6500 subspecies of powerpc64 is not supported.

Your Options

Option 1: Stay on Dunfell (Recommended for T4240RDB)

The Dunfell branch of the QorIQ Yocto SDK remains the latest officially supported Yocto release for the T4240RDB. You can access it at:

•  https://github.com/nxp-qoriq/yocto-sdk/tree/dunfell

This is the path NXP recommends for PowerPC T-Series customers who need a stable, supported Yocto environment.

Option 2: Use Community/Upstream Sources

NXP's official guidance for Power Architecture P-Series and T-Series customers is to leverage upstream community sources for newer kernel and U-Boot versions:

"Going forward, we encourage customers using Power Architecture-based P-series and T-series platforms to get the enablement software directly from the community sources like kernel.org and denx.de (uboot)."

This means you can build a newer kernel (e.g., 5.x or 6.x) for T4240RDB using mainline sources, but this requires manual integration work and is not a turnkey NXP-supported SDK.

Option 3: Migrate to an ARM-Based Layerscape Platform

If a newer Yocto SDK (including Wrynose) is a hard requirement, the only path is to migrate the hardware platform to an ARM-based Layerscape processor (e.g., LX2160A, LS1046A, LS1088A), which are fully supported in Wrynose and future NXP Yocto releases. This is a significant hardware redesign effort but aligns with NXP's long-term roadmap.

Option 4: NXP Professional/Premium Support

If you need custom BSP work or a porting effort for T4240RDB on a newer Yocto baseline, NXP offers Professional Support for Processors and Microcontrollers, which includes Linux/Yocto recipe assistance and direct access to NXP engineers.

regards