BoraX Embedded Linux Kit (BXELK)

Info Box Applies to BORA Xpress

Introduction

BoraX SOM

BoraX Embedded Linux Kit (BXELK for short) provides all the necessary components required to set up the developing environment to:

• build the first-stage bootloader (FSBL)
• build the 2nd-stage bootloader (U-Boot)
• build and run Linux operating system on BoraX system-on-module (SOM)
• build and debug applications that will be executed on top of Yocto-based Linux distribution running on the target.

The main kit components are:

• hardware platform, composed by BoraX SOM and BoraXEVB
• technical documentation (hardware manuals, mechanical drawings, reference schematics, application notes etc.)

Kit content

Component	Description	Notes
	BoraX SOM (p/n DBXF4110D2R) SoC: Xilinx XC7Z030 (866Mhz, Speed "-3", Tj 0-100°C) SDRAM: 1 GB DDR3 NOR: bootable SPI flash 16 MB NAND: 1GB (SLC)
	BoraXEVB carrier board
	AC/DC Single Output Wall Mount adapter Output: +12V – 2.0 A
	MicroSDHC card with SD adapter and USB adapter

Logical structure of BXELK

Please refer to this page.

BXELK software components

Please refer to this page.

Quick start guide

This chapter describes how to quickly start working with the BXELK kit. The following paragraphs will guide you through the setup and installation procedures.

Kit registration

Customers are strongly recommended to register their kits. Registration grants access to reserved material such as source code and additional documentation.

Please register your development kit by sending an email to support-bora@dave.eu, providing the kit P/N and CODE.

Target setup and first boot

This section describes how to quickly start BoraX/BoraXEVB system included in the BXELK:

• on target side, connect a null-modem cable on J17 DB9 connector, denoted also as UART1
• on host side, connect the other end of the null-modem cable to a COM port and start your favorite terminal software that will be used to interact with the target's serial console; communication parameters are 115200-8-N-1
• optionally connect the BoraXEVB board to an Ethernet LAN by plugging cable into connector J8, also denoted as BORAX ETHERNET
• connect 12V power supply to JP2 connector, also denoted as PSU 12V JACK
• insert the microSD card in the slot J21, also denoted as MICROSD.

Target setup for first boot

Once power has been applied to the target, FSBL and U-Boot bootloaders will be fetched from the SPI NOR flash that equips BoraX SOM and executed. Boot messages will be printed out to the serial console. Redundant U-Boot environment is stored in the NOR flash as well, as depicted in the following image.

NOR flash default partitioning

By default, U-Boot is configured to retrieve Linux kernel image stored in the microSD card [1]. In turn, Linux kernel shall mount root file system from the mmcblk0p2 partition of the microSD card itself. At the end of boot process, Linux shell shall be available on the serial console.

The following dump shows the typical messages printed out to the console during bootstrap process.

TBD

[1] bootscript is used to do this task.

Host setup

As stated previously, BXELK host tools are based on a Managed Virtual Machine. As indicated here, microSD card delivered along with BXELK includes basic version of MVM that is the default option.

In case you choose to use the Advanced version of the MVM instead, the project-name to be used is lynx.

Either version you choose, please follow the procedure described here to install the MVM.

It is also worth remembering that access to git repositories is required to download target source code. To enable it, please refer to this page.

Either version of MVM is installed, it provides the tools required to build U-boot and Linux kernel. It does not include the tools required to run Yocto build system instead.

Target configuration for the development stage (net_nfs)

During the development stage, the target is usually connected via Ethernet LAN to the host machine and is configured to:

• retrieve binary images (i.e. Linux kernel) via TFTP protocol
• mount the development root file system via NFS protocol. This root file system is physically in the file system of the host machine as depicted here.

In DAVE Embedded Systems development kits, this configuration is generally denoted as net_nfs. U-Boot bootloader supports this configuration. Some U-Boot environment variables are needed to set it up. They are detailed here.

For more details about TFTP and NFS servers on host side, please refer to this page.

Target configuration for standalone boot

Please refer to this page.

Physical devices mapping

Please refer to this page.

Advanced topics

Debugging with Eclipse

Please refer to this page.