Support for Freescale IMX based Wandboard Quad/etc

English Hardware
#1

Hi guys,

I have a Wandboard Quad (Wandboard - eLinux.org) here with me and managed to get openSuSE Tumbleweed to run on it.
Was pretty easy and straight forward actually.

Now I wonder if it is possible to get an official image build by SuSE like there is e.g. for the Raspberry.
https://download.opensuse.org/ports/armv7hl/tumbleweed/appliances/

Any starting points?

Thank you!

Regards
Simon

#2

Why is an extra image necessary then?

#3

Well, I took the Raspberry Pi 2 image and modified it.
I had to compile u-boot, dd’ it at the right spot, compile a new kernel, update grub… also the binaries are not optimized for the CPU.
All this is easy when you know what you are doing, but others might have a hard time getting openSuSE to run on the Wandboard.

#4

I think you when you wrote this, you misunderstood that that means for others here that just a simple standard installation worked for you.

What you describe is for most people here not “easy and straightforward”. :frowning_face:

#5

That is maybe true… :slight_smile:
I was more referring to the usual troubles of getting linux to run on foreign/unsupported hardware.
When I started this project I was ready to see kernel crashdumps (at best) and debug my way through and eventually give up and throw the board away. As it turns out, the hardware seems to be well supported by linux.

The installation essentially it boils down to:

  • dd the Raspberry Pi 2 JeOS image to an sdcard
  • compile u-boot with the wandboard default config
  • dd u-boot to sector 1 of the sdcard
  • get the linux kernel source
  • load the kernel config from the Raspberry Pi
  • activate the sdcard driver of the i.MX6
  • compile the kernel
  • copy it to sdcard
  • update grub

There are a few glichtes through:

  • zypper of course thinks it is running on a Raspberry Pi and will install packages like “raspberrypi-firmware”, which makes no sense on the wandboard.
  • There are some packages that also get installed automatically during zypper update that mess up u-boot and prevent further boots.
  • My custom kernel receives no updates - I have to do this manually
  • The binaries were compiled for an A7 while the wandboard features a A9 CPU

I was hoping that when SuSE builds an official image for this board these glichtes would go away and also make the board useable (again) for a larger audience. Unfortunately I do not know who to contact and how difficult it would be to add a new board to the HCL.

Regards
Simon

#6

I think that explanation was missing very much in your first post.

I am BTW not sure that this forum of openSUSE users is the best place (but people here might be interested in what you did) for asking SUSE (not SuSE) or openSUSE to provide what you want.

I am also not sure what is the better place (but people here might come with suggestions).

#7

SUSE/openSUSE aren’t likely to create a custom image for any SBC, without a person who has that hardware contributing the setup to create that image.

It looks like you’ve done most of the heavy lifting already, so I would suggest contacting the openSUSE-ARM mailing list:

or maybe dropping into #opensuse-arm on libera.net (IRC) or #arm:opensuse.org (Matrix)