TS-7250-V3 kernel compile guide

A compatible armhf cross compiler is needed for building the 5.10 kernel. We recommend using the cross compiler available in Debian distributions. It is also possible to use our Buildroot repository to build a compatible cross compiler.

Download and Configure

These steps assume a host Linux workstation with an appropriate cross compiler. While on most platforms the kernel can be downloaded, built, and installed all on the device, we recommend against this due to the amount of time, memory, and disk space that can be needed for a build.

Prerequisites

If using our instructions for using Docker to handle the cross compiler, then the Docker environment needs to be entered first:

# Create a place to store the kernel:
mkdir -p ~/Projects/tsimx6ul/kernel/
cd ~/Projects/tsimx6ul/kernel/
docker-debian-bookworm

If the Docker container is not being used, a number of host tools are required to be installed on the workstation:

# Install dependencies for kernel build
# The following command is for Ubuntu / Debian workstations. If using a different
# distribution, please consult distribution docs for the proper commands to install
# new packages/tools/libraries/etc.
apt-get install git fakeroot build-essential ncurses-dev xz-utils libssl-dev bc flex libelf-dev bison

Note:

The above prerequisite libraries and tools may not be the complete list, depending on the workstation's distribution and age. It may be necessary to install additional packages to support kernel compilation.

Download kernel repo on a host Linux workstation:

# Do a shallow clone of the sources
git clone --depth 1 -b linux-5.10.y https://github.com/embeddedTS/linux-lts

cd linux-lts/

Configure environment variables needed for building. This specifies the architecture, the cross compiler that is being used, and to set up building the kernel modules for the WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE module:

export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabihf-  # This may be different if using a different compiler!
export ARCH=arm
export WILC=y

The WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE drivers are maintained and built externally out of the kernel tree. Clone this tree inside of the linux-lts/ directory (this is built later):

git clone https://github.com/embeddedTS/wilc3000-external-module/

Next, set the default configuration for this platform. Note that a minimal defconfig and a full-feature defconfig are available. The minimal defconfig contains options for supporting the device and a few common peripherals and technologies. While the full defconfig includes much more support for things like USB devices, a more broad range of netfilter/iptables filter module support, etc.

make tsimx6ul_defconfig

# The minimal defconfig can alternately be used with:
# make tsimx6ul_minimal_defconfig

Build and Install

Note:

If using the Docker container to cross compile, be sure to exit the container after the build script below completes! The tarball will be located in the linux-lts/ folder that was created.

The following will build the kernel and modules, and install the kernel, modules, and headers to a folder and create a tarball from that. This tarball can be unpacked to bootable media, e.g. microSD, eMMC, USB, etc., to update an existing bootable disk.

The script below is most easily saved as a text file and run from the command line as a script. Most terminal emulators will accept the whole script copy/pasted in to the terminal. But it is also possible to copy paste each line of text in to a terminal. In any case, the following is an example of how to compile the kernel. The script or commands used can be modified as needed to suit a specific build pipeline.

The script assumes the following environment variables are set before it is run. See the above sections for what these variables should be set to for this specific platform.

ARCH

Used to indicate the target CPU architecture.

CROSS_COMPILE

Used to point to an appropriate cross toolchain for the target platform.

LOADADDR [Optional]

Used on some platforms to tell U-Boot where to load the file.

WILC [Optional]

Set to "y" to build and install the WILC3000 Wi-Fi/BLE external modules.

#!/bin/bash -e

# Always build zImage, most common. If LOADADDR is set, then uImage is also built
TARGETS="zImage"
if [ -n "${LOADADDR}" ]; then TARGETS+=" uImage"; fi

# Build the actual kernel, binary files, and loadable modules.
# Use as many CPUs to do this as possible.
make -j"$(nproc)" && make ${TARGETS} && make modules

# Create a temporary directory to install the kernel to in order to use that as a base directory for a tarball.
# Also creates a temporary file that is used as the tarball name.
TEMPDIR=$(mktemp -d)
TEMPFILE=$(mktemp)
mkdir "${TEMPDIR}/boot/"

# Adds "arch/arm/boot/" path prefix to each TARGET
cp $(for i in ${TARGETS}; do echo arch/arm/boot/$i; done) "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/

# Copy the full .config file to the target, this is optional and can be removed
cp .config "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/config

# Copy all of the generated FDT binary files to the target
cp arch/arm/boot/dts/*ts*.dtb  "${TEMPDIR}"/boot/

# Install kernel modules to the target
INSTALL_MOD_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make modules_install

# Install kernel headers to the target, this is optional in most cases and can be removed to save space on the target
make headers_install INSTALL_HDR_PATH="${TEMPDIR}"

# If WILC is set to "y", then build the external module for the WILC300 Wi-Fi/BLE device.
# Note that this expects the source to be available as a subfolder in the kernel. See the above sections 
# for details on getting the driver source if it is used on this specific platform.
if [ "${WILC}" == "y" ]; then
    CONFIG_WILC_SPI=m INSTALL_MOD_PATH="${TEMPDIR}" make M=./wilc3000-external-module modules modules_install
fi

# Use fakeroot to properly set permissions on the target folder as well as create a tarball from this.
fakeroot sh -c "chmod 755 ${TEMPDIR};
        chown -R root:root ${TEMPDIR};
        tar czf ${TEMPFILE}.tar.gz -C ${TEMPDIR} .";

# Create a final output tarball and cleanup all of the temporary files and folder.
cp ${TEMPFILE}.tar.gz embeddedTS-linux-lts-"$(date +"%Y%m%d")"-"$(git describe --abbrev=8 --dirty --always)".tar.gz
rm -rf "${TEMPDIR}" "${TEMPFILE}"

At this point, the tarball can be unpacked to a bootable media for the device. This can be done from a booted device, or by mounting removable media from a host Linux workstation. For example, if the root folder of the target filesystem to be updated is mounted to /mnt/, the following can be used to unpack the above tarball:

# Ensure the target filesystem is mounted to /mnt first!

# Extract kernel tarball to target filesystem, 
tar xhf embeddedTS-linux-lts-*.tar.gz -C /mnt

Note:

The h argument to tar is necessary on recent distributions that use paths with symlinks. Not using it can potentially render the whole filesystem no longer bootable.

This will correctly unpack the kernel, modules, and headers to the target filesystem which can then be booted as normal.