Compiling Linux - Arrow SoCKit Edition

How to build U-Boot, Kernel and Rootfs

Overview

This page presents instructions on how to build the following Linux items:

• U-Boot
• Linux Kernel
• Angstrom distribution Root Filesystem

Host Setup for Building Angstrom

The Altera Linux Angstrom distribution was tested to build correctly with Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04, and CentOS 6.5. It may also work with other distributions. For a list of distributions against which the Angstrom distribution was tested, refer to the documentation for the Yocto release you are using. The 16.0 GSRD was built using Yocto 1.7. See here for a list of Support distributions for Yocto 1.7. Altera Linux Angstrom distribution is officially built and tested using Ubuntu 12.04.

This section presents the packages that need to be installed on the host PC to allow the Angstrom distribution to be built. Since each machine may have been installed in a different way, the packages listed here are not an exhaustive list. Add packages as necessary if you encounter issues. See here for a list of required packages for your host development system for Yocto 1.7.

Ubuntu 14.04

These are the required "essential" packages that need to be installed (from Yocto 1.7 documentation link above):

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib build-essential chrpath socat

Ubuntu 12.04

These are the required packages that need to be installed:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install sed wget cvs subversion git-core coreutils unzip texi2html  texinfo libsdl1.2-dev docbook-utils gawk python-pysqlite2 diffstat help2man  make gcc build-essential g++ desktop-file-utils chrpath libgl1-mesa-dev  libglu1-mesa-dev mercurial autoconf automake groff libtool xterm

If the host machine runs the 64bit version of the OS, then the following additional packages need to be installed:

$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

On Ubuntu 12.04 you will also need to make /bin/sh point to bash instead of dash. You can accomplish this by running:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure dash

and selecting "No". (Alternatively, you can run:

sudo ln -sf bash /bin/sh

however this is not recommended, as it may get undone by Ubuntu software updates.)

CentOS 6.5

These are the required packages that need to be installed:

$ sudo yum update
$ sudo yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
$ sudo yum install texi2html texinfo glibc-devel chrpath sqlite-devel

If the host machine runs the 64bit version of the OS, then the following additional packages need to be installed:

$ sudo yum install glibc.i686 libgcc.i686 libstdc++.i686 glibc-devel.i686 ncurses-libs.i686 zlib.i686 

On CentOS 6.5 newer version of Python, Git and Tar need to be downloaded, compiled, then added to the current search path. Note that the new packages will not be actually installed on the system, since that would break existing packages that depend on specific tool versions. Instead they will be added to the search path of the current console session.

These are the instructions for downloading and compiling the tools (only needs to be done once):

# python
cd ~
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.8/Python-2.7.8.tgz 
tar xf Python-2.7.8.tgz
cd Python-2.7.8
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --enable-unicode=ucs4 --enable-shared LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath /usr/local/lib"
make

# git
cd ~
wget https://git-core.googlecode.com/files/git-1.7.8.tar.gz 
tar xf git-1.7.8.tar.gz
cd git-1.7.8
./configure  --prefix=/usr/local
make

# tar
cd ~
wget http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/tar/tar-1.28.tar.gz 
tar xf tar-1.28.tar.gz
cd tar-1.28
./configure  --prefix=/usr/local
make

These are the instructions for adding the new tools to the search path. It needs to be done just before invoking the 'bitbake' commands:

export set PATH=~/Python-2.7.8:~/git-1.7.8:~/tar-1.28/src:$PATH

Build U-Boot, Kernel, and rootfs for the Angstrom Distribution

The U-Boot, Kernel and Rootfs can be built using the Angstrom recipes that are provided as a Git tree.

Component	Git address	Tag
Yocto Angstrom Recipes	angstrom-socfpga	ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR

This section presents how to clone the Yocto Project git tree and also how to build using it.

Note that only the Yocto Project build system and the recipes are cloned, all the dependencies are downloaded from the remote repository during the build process.

The commands for cloning the Yocto Project git trees and building with Yocto are:

Create a working directory, such as angstrom-v2014.12.

$ mkdir angstrom-v2014.12
$ cd angstrom-v2014.12

Clone the Angstrom repository and create a new local branch (test_branch) whose head points to ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR.

$ git clone https://github.com/altera-opensource/angstrom-socfpga
$ cd angstrom-socfpga/
$ git checkout -b test_branch ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR

Note: This is not required, but you can replace test_branch with any name of the branch you want to use locally.

Remove references to unused layers coming from the gitorious.org site which was shut down.

$ sed -i /.*kde4.*/d sources/layers.txt
$ sed -i /.*gumstix.*/d sources/layers.txt
$ sed -i /.*kde4.*/d conf/bblayers.conf
$ sed -i /.*gumstix.*/d conf/bblayers.conf

Add the meta-arrow-sockit layer.

$ echo "meta-arrow-sockit,https://github.com/arrow-socfpga/meta-arrow-sockit.git,sockit-gsrd-15.1-dev,62684394401aaeb887c1af138c3d9690fcc97363" >> sources/layers.txt
$ sed -i '/meta-altera-refdes/a \ \ \$\{TOPDIR\}\/sources\/meta-arrow-sockit \\' conf/bblayers.conf
$ echo "PREFERRED_PROVIDER_virtual/kernel = \"linux-altera-ltsi\"" >> conf/local.conf
$ echo "PREFERRED_VERSION_linux-altera-ltsi = \"3.10%\"" >> conf/local.conf

Setup the build environment.

$ MACHINE=cyclone5 ./oebb.sh config cyclone5
$ source ./environment-angstrom-v2014.12
$ export BB_ENV_EXTRAWHITE="$BB_ENV_EXTRAWHITE KERNEL_TAG UBOOT_TAG UBOOT_PROT UBOOT_REPO"
$ export KERNEL_TAG=refs/tags/ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR ←- skip this until a new tag is up. A rebase to the kernel has caused the tag to be in an orphan node.
$ export UBOOT_TAG=refs/tags/ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR
$ export UBOOT_REPO=git://github.com/altera-opensource/u-boot-socfpga
$ export UBOOT_PROT=http

This next step required only on CentOS 6.5

$ export set PATH=~/Python-2.7.8:~/git-1.7.8:~/tar-1.28/src:$PATH

Build the kernel, root file system, and u-boot

$ MACHINE=cyclone5 bitbake virtual/kernel sockit-gsrd-console-image virtual/bootloader 

Note: If your computer connects to the Internet using a proxy, you may need to use this command to tell the Git utility about the proxy:

$ git config --global http.proxy <proxy_name>

The first time you build the Yocto Source Package it may take up to several hours depending on your host machine.

Once finished, all images should be generated in ~/angstrom-socfpga/deploy/glibc/images/cyclone5/. Some of the most important files created are:

File	Description
u-boot-cyclone5	U-Boot ELF file
u-boot-cyclone5.bin	U-Boot binary file
u-boot-cyclone5.img	U-Boot image
vmlinux	Kernel ELF file
zImage	Compressed kernel image
sockit-gsrd-console-image-cyclone5.cpio	GSRD Angstrom Root Filesystem in cpio archive format
sockit-gsrd-console-image-cyclone5.ext3	GSRD Angstrom Root Filesystem as ext3 image
sockit-gsrd-console-image-cyclone5.tar.xz	GSRD Angstrom Root Filesystem in tar XZ archive format

The above file names are Linux filesystem symbolic links to the build output target files. The actual target files include one or more of the following suffixes: machine name, version number, date/timestamp. Each time bitbake is run, the links are updated to point to the latest target file. This will be relevant when locating the files to create the SD card. The files above highlighted in blue are the ones that will be used when creating the SD Card image.

Building Kernel & U-Boot Separately From Git Trees

U-boot and Linux kernel can also be built directly from the git trees at http://rocketboards.org/gitweb. This section presents instructions for cloning the git trees and building U-boot, Linux kernel and Yocto.

Component	Git address	Tag
Linux	linux-socfpga.git	ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR
U-Boot	u-boot-socfpga.git	ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR

Build Toolchain

Note that when using the Yocto build flow, the build toolchain is provided by the Yocto recipes and the build toolchain will be downloaded automatically. When building u-boot or the kernel separately, the build toolchain must be manually downloaded and the u-boot and kernel source trees cloned manually. This section contains the instructions on how to download and setup the toolchain for this case.

The steps necessary to download and setup the build toolchain are:

$ mkdir ~/your/preferred/install/directory
$ cd ~/your/preferred/install/directory
$ wget http://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/5.3-2016.02/arm-linux-gnueabihf/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
$ tar xvf gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz
$ export CROSS_COMPILE=~/your/preferred/install/directory/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-

Other Linaro toolchain versions are available at http://releases.linaro.org/components/toolchain/binaries/

Building U-Boot

This section presents instructions on how to clone the U-boot git tree and compile U-boot. It assumes that you have manually downloaded the build toolchain as described above.

$ mkdir ~/your/preferred/work/directory
$ cd ~/your/preferred/work/directory
$ git clone http://github.com/altera-opensource/u-boot-socfpga
$ cd u-boot-socfpga
$ git checkout -b test_branch ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR
$ export CROSS_COMPILE=~/your/preferred/install/directory/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-
$ make mrproper
$ make socfpga_cyclone5_config
$ make

Note: replace test_branch with the name of the branch you want to use locally.

Some of the files that are created:

File	Description
u-boot	U-boot ELF file
u-boot.bin	U-boot binary file
u-boot.img	U-boot image file

Building Linux Kernel

This section presents instructions on how to clone the Linux kernel git tree and compile the Linux kernel. It assumes that you have manually downloaded the build toolchain as described above.

$ mkdir ~/your/preferred/work/directory
$ cd ~/your/preferred/work/directory
$ git clone https://github.com/altera-opensource/linux-socfpga
$ cd linux-socfpga
$ git checkout -b test_branch ACDS16.0_REL_GSRD_PR
$ export CROSS_COMPILE=~/your/preferred/install/directory/gcc-linaro-5.3-2016.02-x86_64_arm-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-
$ export ARCH=arm 
$ make socfpga_defconfig
$ make zImage

Note: replace test_branch with the name of the branch you want to use locally.

Some of the files that are created:

File	Description
vmlinux	Linux Kernel ELF file
arch/arm/boot/zImage	Linux Kernel image