Load/Flash the android image in SD card

[arunmitteam]

Hi,

I have I.MX53 QSB and I'm using Adeneo Ginger bread android source files downloaded from their website. I'm able to build an android image from the adeneo source files. I used the flash android image script and also tried the flash prebuilt image script. The script was executed successfully but when I insert the SD card and power on the board nothing happens. I think I'm missing something very simple.

I don't have a touchscreen display yet, so I'm just using the VGA display. Will I be able to use it only with touch screen? I saw few posts on setting some U-boot environment variables to make it work with VGA display but I wasn't able to understand it completely.

Firstly, I wasn't sure whether flashing the image is success. I can confirm only if I can see the OS booted in the screen and for that I need to make it work with a VGA display. Any help or directions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[vishal284]

Hi Arun

Even I am facing the same problem but with i.mx6 board.

I am not able to see terminal using Putty. I see only a POWER SW button in the Base board. I pressed it but nothing happened.

Even I am getting some 6 different partitions in SD card, after connecting to Ubuntu image.

Could you please let me know.

Thanks

Vishal

[jimmychan]

The default boot mode is booting from micro SD card. Are you using the micro SD card?

[arunmitteam]

Yes, I'm using a micro SD card.

[jimmychan · Accepted solution]

Do you have a serial cable? so you can connect the QSB board to your PC. Then open a Terminal on your PC (e.g. Putty) and see the boot up message on the Terminal screen.

When you power on your board, please try to press the reset and power buttons (next to the micro SD card slot).

For the VGA output, please check the bootarg in u-boot. The bootarg should be included this:

"video=mxcdi1fb:GBR24,VGA-XGA di1_primary vga"   which is XGA resolution.

You can change the resolution :

VGA-WSXGA+: D:1680x1050p-60

VGA-SXGA: D:1280x1024p-60

VGA-XGA: D:1024x768p-60

VGA-SVGA: D:800x600p-60

[arunmitteam]

Hi Jimmy,

Thanks for your reply. I don't have a serial cable but I will get one tomorrow and try it. I have couple of questions -

1. RS 232 serial cable - It should be a 9 pin connector to the board and how should be the other end? Should the other end be USB or pin to PC display output. Sorry if the question was too silly to ask but I'm doing this for the first time.

2. Should I connect to the device using putty (some ip address) or just open the putty, boot the board and I should see the boot message?

3. Where/how can I set the bootarg for u-boot? Should I set something while flashing android to sd card? Please explain

I know that I have asked very basic questions. I'm working on very tight deadline and this is the first time i'm working with the board. I would really appreciate your help with my questions. Thanks!

[daiane_angolini]

if you don't have a serial cable, how do you know your SDCard is not properly installed?

When you got serial cable, please let us know. If you don't find it, you can try to use adb over USB, but it will only work if Android could start.

[arunmitteam]

I totally agree, and accept my ignorance. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, I will update as soon as I try with the PC and RS 232.

[jimmychan]

1) yes, it is a 9 pins (male) plug to the QSB board. The other end of the cable (9 holes) connect to the PC.

2,3) Putty is just a Terminal software. You can use any Terminal software on your PC side. The board is connected to your PC via the serial cable. The serial port on your PC mostly is called COM1. So on the Terminal software, just open the connection for the COM1 port. Then you should able to change the uboot setting and see the message on the Terminal screen when the board is booting up. Some setting for the COM1 port (baudrate=115200, 8N1,  Flow Control = None)

[arunmitteam]

I tried to see the console output and I found all special characters in the putty screen. Attached the screenshot.

[jimmychan]

When you run the Putty, please check the Serial setting like this.

[arunmitteam]

This is really great. I have made lot of progress today. I was able to see the debug console and set the U boot arguments before the boot. I used the below command as per the document  I have and restarted the board.

setenv vga 'setenv bootargs ${bootargs} di1_primary video=mxcdi1fb:GBR24,1680x1050@60 vga'

save

I was able to boot the board with android OS :smileyhappy: and the output display as my monitor. I'm all set for the development.

Now the display is VGA so how will I be able to select things and type without mouse and keyboard? will mouse and keyboard work?

Without your directions and answers to my silly questions I would have never made any progress. Thanks a ton!

[jimmychan]

Glad to know you can boot up the board and the Android output to your display.  :smileyhappy:

When the Android is up, you cannot select things without mouse and keyboard.

On the QSB, there are two USB ports. You can plug an USB mouse and USB keyboard.

[arunmitteam]

Hi Jimmy,

Actually I tried to use the mouse and keyboard with the QSB board. Only the top USB port works, the other one doesn't work. I confirmed it. I checked the documentation (Adeneo release notes r4.3) and even in the document they have mentioned to connect keyboard and mouse to top USB port. They didn't talk about the second USB port. Is there a way to enable the second port?

I have another question about the android OS navigation controls. With mouse I'm able to come back by doing a right click but when I use it with a touchscreen lcd, we don't have a hardware back button. Is there a way to simulate the back and home button when using a LCD touchscreen.

[jimmychan]

If only the top one is work, you may connect an USB hub on the top one. Then connect the keyboard and mouse on the hub. Or some USB keyboard with hub that can connect a mouse on it.

Sorry, I don't have idea on your second question. Maybe you ask this question in the Android Developer forum.

[arunmitteam]

ok thank you

[arunmitteam]

Thanks Jimmy. Really appreciate the detailed explanation for all of my questions. I'm going to get a RS 232 and try with a PC (if I find one, I only have macbook and laptop). Will update you as soon as I make some progress. Thanks again for your help!

[daiane_angolini]

VGA - you can use android on VGA. It will not be touchscreen, but you can use a keyboard or mouse as input.

But, first of all, let's try to get prompt, OK? When you see linux prompt, you know your sdcard if good and we can configure it as you want.

Do you have a PC with Ubuntu? Or any other linux/unix distribution? Or even a virtual machine?

What do you see when you plug your SDCard in your PC? For gingerbread you must have 5 partitions. Please, share your dmesg or your ls /dev/sdb*

What's your SDCard size? I used one of this scripts once ago and my sdcard was not the 'right' size, resulting on a wrong sdcard.

[arunmitteam]

Hi Daiane,

Thanks so much for your quick reply.

I have Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit version running as a VM on my Macbook. This is what I see as partitions in my SD card -

ls /dev/sda*

/dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda3  /dev/sda4  /dev/sda5  /dev/sda6

sda is the SD card device in my Ubuntu. My SD card size is 4GB.