Re: [meta-freescale] imx6dl dunfell and kernel: linux-fslc or linux-fslc-imx?

["Terry Barnaby" <terry@beam.ltd.uk>]

On 25/02/2021 09:29, Andrey Zhizhikin wrote:
> Hello Terry,
>
> On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 10:01 AM Terry Barnaby <terry@beam.ltd.uk> wrote:
>>
>> For a novice to NXP Freescale builds, what setup would you recommend as a basic test Yocto build for a Wandboard IMX6 dual lite system in order to test the performance of the hardware video processing system using gstreamer*imx (VPU etc) ?
> Since I do not have any of the i.MX6 HW and unaware of the state of
> VPU support - I can only speak from distro perspective. Anyone who
> posses the HW can clarify points from machine perspective here.
>
>> Would fslc-x11 or fslc-xwayland distro with the linux-fslc-imx kernel be the best approach or would some fsl-* distro with the linux-imx kernel be the best approach ?
> The first recommendation from my side would be: choose the distro
> flavor. There are 2 types of distro in the layer: Community and
> NXP-based.
>
> 1. All distros with `fsl-` prefix are generally NXP-based, and include
> packages that NXP supplies as a part of their distribution. When it
> comes to kernel and U-Boot support - `linux-imx` and `u-boot-imx`
> packages are set as providers of `virtual/kernel` and
> `virtual/bootloader` respectively. This automatically means that if
> you take any of those distros prefixed with `fsl-` - you would be
> building NXP-based distribution. In addition, all packages that are
> marked as compatible with this BSP flavor would be included, in your
> case that would include the `gstreamer*imx` package.
> NOTE: you can switch the kernel provider to `linux-fslc-imx` for this
> BSP flavor, which would include the kernel type I described already in
> this thread (NXP release 2.1.0 + latest LTS patch level applied).
> `linux-fslc` cannot be set with this type of distro.
>
> 2. All distros with `fslc-` prefix are Community-based distros, which
> aims to include the upstream OSS packages and avoid using packages
> which has "Proprietary" license types in them. Kernel provider is set
> to `linux-fslc`, U-Boot provider is set to `u-boot-fslc`. As for the
> `gstreamer*imx` - I do not know if the compatibility set in the recipe
> would allow it to be included in this type of distro.
> NOTE: in this type of distro - only `linux-fslc` can be used as kernel provider.
>
>> The standard Wandboard build uses linux-fslc which does not seem to support the imx hardware features and so I am trying to build a suitable test platform but having no luck trying various build combinations that either wont build or wont run properly in various ways, so any pointers would be gratefully received !
> This means that Wandboard sets IMX_DEFAULT_BSP = "mainline" somewhere
> in its machine configuration, which targets the Community-based
> distribution. You can try to find where it is set and change it to
> IMX_DEFAULT_BSP = "nxp" to target NXP-based distro, and then use any
> of `fsl-` prefixed configuration files on your DISTRO variable.
>
> What you will get with this setup is then NXP-based distribution, but
> since as I said above I do not have any i.MX6 HW - I cannot guarantee
> that this setup would be 100% operable. Also in this case you would
> opt-in to use NXP distribution, so you should watch for licensing
> terms.
>
>> Terry
>>
>>
> --
> Regards,
> Andrey.

Hi Andrey,

Many thanks for your time and info on this, that is a great help to firm 
up where I should be starting from and which distros are compatible (to 
some degree anyway) with which kernel.

 From what I am seeing I will have to use a NXP fsl-* based distribution 
to support the imx hardware video processing features. I have built such 
a distro with both linux-fslc-imx and limux-imx kernels (I think!) for 
the Wandboard, which boots and runs but the HDMI display was not 
functional. I will persevere looking at that.

Terry