Any iMX developers using non standard O/S's or bare metal designs?

[samsaprunoff]

Good day All,

I was curious if anyone is doing any iMX development that does not use Linux, CE, or any other "main" stream O/S's?  I ask, as the iMX28 series looks like a great all around embedded processor and there are applications where using Linux, etc would be a complete overkill... Adding to this I am finding even the initial development tool/kernal setup for for Linux to be very time consuming, etc and not overly concise (various documents with various bits of info one needs, some docs refer to distributions that are dated, etc).   This is in complete contrast to the Coldfire (CF) family... where there is a lot more available information, code snippets/examples, etc which really helps developers ramp up on using these parts.

Cheers,

Sam

[VladanJovanovic · Accepted solution]

You may want to have a look at MQX for i.MX28. It's a nice RTOS to get you started.

Embedded Access Inc -MQX for i.MX28

Another option could be to base your application on u-boot, which gives you starting environment and plenty of drivers.

For bare-metal development, OBDS is a good starting point as well. It has a lot of drivers implemented so gets you going quickly. You can download it from here:

i.MX280 Product Summary Page

Vladan

[samsaprunoff]

Good day Vladen,

Thanks again for directing me to the OBDS info.  This is indeed what I was looking for and it helps me a lot in terms of the startup/setup of the iMX28 for a bare metal project. I was able to get all this working with Ubuntu 12.04 (for compiling, etc) and Windows 7 Professional (for CFImager)

For anyone using the OBDS, there are a few things that may be of interest to a newb.  Firstly, the CodeSourcery toolchain installer (Linux) does not update the PATH environment despite what it says in the documentation.  You will need to update PATH and then export it.  Secondly, the OBDS build script provided (with build_mx28.sh) does not work under Ubuntu 12.04... at least it did not for me.  Since the script was fairly straight forward I just typed in the commands manually (a total of three commands), as I was just testing this process.

I tested this process and it worked without issue.

Cheers,

Sam

[samsaprunoff]

Good day Vladan,

Thank you for your response!

I have looked at/considered MQX for the iMX, but it is pretty pricey for a small project... somewhere around $20K when I last checked into it a year or so ago...

I have also looked at the UBoot approach as well, as it is well documented and is quite thorough.  My project has a really compressed schedule and so I may not have enough time to comfortably go this route... alas...

Thanks for pointing me to the OBDS, as I never looked at it in detail, but will today.

Thanks again for your help!

Cheers,

Sam