iMX53 Quick Start with 3.2 kernel

MikeThompson · ‎03-22-2012

I'm working with the iMX53 Quick Start Board and have it running with Debian Wheezy armhf with the 2.6.35 Linux kernel and Freescale patches. I'm interested in getting moving up to the mainline 3.2 Linux kernel that I've read others have had luck with on this board. I think I've got the kernel nearly configured correctly, but I just can't seem to get the Ethernet device properly initalized. During bootup, I see the following ethernet related messages:

IP-Config: Failed to open eth0
IP-Config: No network devices available.
...

Setting up networking....
Configuring network interfaces...
dhcpcd[1122]: version 5.2.12 starting
dhcpcd[1122]: eth0: up_interface: Cannot assign requested address
dhcpcd[1122]: eth0: waiting for carrier
dhcpcd[1122]: timed out
dhcpcd[1122]: allowing 8 seconds for IPv4LL timeout
dhcpcd[1122]: timed out
Failed to bring up eth0.
done.

Does someone have a working 3.2 kernel configuration file for this board that might show me exactly what devices need to be set within the configuration file for working ethernet? I suspect there are just one or two settings I have have that are keeping the FEC driver from kicking in.

BTW, I'm on 3.2.12 version of the kernel. Is this perhaps too bleeding edge? Would I have more success with an earlier version?

MorenoAddadHass · ‎06-25-2012

I'm going to look into your problem and see if I can do something. I'm running Debian as well and I can't see the gstreamer plugins too, even when I reboot.

JorgeMuaﾱoz · ‎06-22-2012

Thank you very much for your reply,

The problem I had was that I followed the steps to build the Gstreamer plugin as described on the file IMX_MMCODECS_11.09.tar.gz that can be found on the download section. However when I got to the step that tell me to execute 'gst-inspect' to display the current codec plugins, I could not see the Freescale plugins.

On a second try; I followed the steps again and I still couldn't not see the plugin. I thought that maybe the board might needed a reboot, I did that, and now I can see the plugins. :-)
So the issue is solved, next step is to build a media player; I'll use Totem, but the amount of dependencies that apt tells me I need to download have lowered my enthusiasm of doing it. But I guess I'll give it a try this weekend.

I do however, have another problem; it is 3D acceleration. I don't seem to find sources or instructions on the downloads section, and I tried copy pasting the binary libs that are inside in the Ubuntu distribution that came with the board to my Debian distribution, but executing any OpenGLES code yields that the glibc is not compatible.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

Moreno Addad Hassem said:

You are probably not going to get any video acceleration on a newer Kernel. Can you tell me the problems you're having enabling Gstreamer on the Freescale 2.6.35 kernel? I'm no expert but maybe I can help.
Regards.

MorenoAddadHass · ‎06-21-2012

You are probably not going to get any video acceleration on a newer Kernel. Can you tell me the problems you're having enabling Gstreamer on the Freescale 2.6.35 kernel? I'm no expert but maybe I can help.

Regards.

Jorge Muñoz said:

Hello Mike,

I just came across this forum thread, I'm also using Debian on my iMX53, my pick was Debian 'squeeze' armel. Since the use I want to give the iMX53 is to be a media station I'm looking to have video hardware acceleration, so far I failed to make it work.
I was wondering if in the previous installation you had using the 2.6.35 Linux kernel, did you manage to enable hardware acceleration ?
my iMX53 setup:
. Debian 'squeeze' armel
. 2.6.35 Linux kernel (build using the instructions on this thread http://imxcommunity.org/group/imx53quickstartboard/forum/topics/ubu...)
. LXDE
. Gstreamer 0.10.28

Regards and thanks in advance,

Jorge

JorgeMuaﾱoz · ‎04-22-2012

Hello Mike,

I just came across this forum thread, I'm also using Debian on my iMX53, my pick was Debian 'squeeze' armel. Since the use I want to give the iMX53 is to be a media station I'm looking to have video hardware acceleration, so far I failed to make it work.
I was wondering if in the previous installation you had using the 2.6.35 Linux kernel, did you manage to enable hardware acceleration ?

my iMX53 setup:
. Debian 'squeeze' armel

. 2.6.35 Linux kernel (build using the instructions on this thread http://imxcommunity.org/group/imx53quickstartboard/forum/topics/ubuntu-11-10-oneiric-64-bit-virtual-...)
. LXDE
. Gstreamer 0.10.28

Regards and thanks in advance,

Jorge

MikeThompson · ‎03-26-2012

Since no one answered my question, I'll answer it myself.

I now have a functioning Debian Linux 3.2.12 kernel with the armhf runtime on my iMX53 Quick Start Board. Attached below is a link to a compressed tar file containing the Debian packages to install a custom version of the kernel and a working u-boot compatible with the kernel. Also included are notes and a boot directory containing the uImage and uInitrd that should help with bootstrapping your own armhf installation on an iMX53 Quick Start Board.

http://home.comcast.net/~michael.p.thompson/mx5/debian_linux_3.2.12_mx5.tar.gz

Please note that the kernel provided is quite minimal and I can only vouch that the serial port, ethernet, SATA interface and SD interface are working. If you get VGA, USB and other peripherals works, please let me know.

Also, this is just the kernel. To get the Debian armhf runtime files, you need to mount the partition that will contain Debian on another Linux system and use debootstrap to install an initial set of armhf packages to support everything else. The instructions at the following link are useful for this part of the task:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds03.html.en

Hopefully this collection of files will be useful to other people trying to get a recent Linux kernel and armhf runtime functioning on an iMX53 Quick Start Board. Let me know if you have any questions.