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Build From source code

Setup ARM Cross Compiler

• Ubuntu:
  In Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you can install the ARM Cross Compiler by doing:

  sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
  export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi-
     

• Others:
  For others, you can download the ARM cross compiler and setup the environment by doing:

  wget -c https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/11.2-2022.02/binrel/gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz?rev=ffc49e4af4cb4c298c2110a4d887716c&hash=4999788F321A7617C04CA172E31F6B22520741FF
  export CROSS_COMPILE=`pwd`/gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-
     

Build AT91Bootstrap from sources

This section describes how to get source code from the git repository, how to configure with the default configuration, how to customize AT91Bootstrap based on the default configuration and finally to build AT91Bootstrap to produce the binary. take the default configuration to download U-Boot from NandFlash for example.

Get AT91Bootstrap Source Code

You can easily download AT91Bootstrap source code on the at91bootstrap git repository.

To get the source code, you should clone the repository by doing:

$ git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/at91bootstrap.git
Cloning into 'at91bootstrap'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 17621, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (3324/3324), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (1029/1029), done.
remote: Total 17621 (delta 2465), reused 3102 (delta 2285), pack-reused 14297
Receiving objects: 100% (17621/17621), 5.65 MiB | 4.65 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (13459/13459), done.
$ cd at91bootstrap/

Configure AT91Bootstrap

Customize AT91Bootstrap

If the default configuration doesn't meet your need, after configuring with the default configuration, you can customize it by doing:

$ make menuconfig

Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features to/from AT91Bootstrap as the same way as kernel configuration.
Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

Build AT91Bootstrap

Then you can build the AT91Bootstrap binary by doing:

$ make

If the building process is successful, the final .bin image is build/binaries/at91bootstrap.bin.

Build U-Boot from sources

Getting U-Boot sources

Dedicated page on U-Boot wiki: http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot/SourceCode

You can easily download U-Boot source code from Linux4SAM GitHub U-Boot repository:

• clone the Linux4sam GitHub U-Boot repository

     $ git clone https://github.com/linux4microchip/u-boot-mchp.git
   Cloning into 'u-boot-mchp'...
   remote: Enumerating objects: 951876, done.
   remote: Counting objects: 100% (17718/17718), done.
   remote: Compressing objects: 100% (5735/5735), done.
   remote: Total 951876 (delta 12391), reused 15314 (delta 11846), pack-reused 934158
   Receiving objects: 100% (951876/951876), 164.77 MiB | 401.00 KiB/s, done.
   Resolving deltas: 100% (790362/790362), done.
     $ cd u-boot-mchp/
     

• The source code has been taken from the master branch which is pointing to the latest branch we use. If you want to use the other branch, you can list them and use one of them by doing:

     $ git branch -r
    origin/HEAD -> origin/master
    origin/dev/tony/sama7g5ek_optee
    origin/master
    origin/sam9x60_curiosity_early
    origin/sam9x60_early
    origin/sam9x60_iar
    origin/sam9x7_early
    origin/sama5d27wlsom1ek_ear
    origin/sama7g5_early
    origin/u-boot-2012.10-at91
    origin/u-boot-2013.07-at91
    origin/u-boot-2014.07-at91
    origin/u-boot-2015.01-at91
    origin/u-boot-2016.01-at91
    origin/u-boot-2016.03-at91
    origin/u-boot-2017.03-at91
    origin/u-boot-2018.07-at91
    origin/u-boot-2019.04-at91
    origin/u-boot-2020.01-at91
    origin/u-boot-2021.04-at91
    origin/u-boot-2022.01-at91
    origin/u-boot-2023.07-mchp
    origin/uboot_5series_1.x
  
     $ git checkout origin/u-boot-2023.07-mchp -b u-boot-2023.07-mchp
    Branch 'u-boot-2023.07-mchp' set up to track remote branch 'u-boot-2023.07-mchp' from 'origin'.
    Switched to a new branch 'u-boot-2023.07-mchp'
     

Cross-compiling U-Boot

Before compiling the U-Boot, you need setup cross compile toolchain in the section.

Latest versions of U-boot (2018.07 and newer) have a minimum requirement of 6.0 version of the GCC toolchain. We always recommend to use the latest versions.

Build Kernel from sources

Required packages

You must install essential host packages on your build host. These requirements are listed in the Linux kernel documentation with the chapter Install build requirements. You must follow this process which includes, but not limited to, the following packages:

• build-essential
  
• flex
  
• bison
  
• git
  
• perl-base
  
• libssl-dev
  
• libncurses5-dev
  
• libncursesw5-dev
  
• ncurses-dev
  

Getting Kernel sources

To get the source code, you have to clone the repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/linux4microchip/linux.git
Cloning into 'linux'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 8587836, done.
remote: Total 8587836 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 8587836
Receiving objects: 100% (8587836/8587836), 3.49 GiB | 13.44 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (7117887/7117887), done.
Updating files: 100% (70687/70687), done.
$ cd linux

The source code has been taken from the master branch which is pointing on the latest branch we use.

Note that you can also add this Linux4SAM repository as a remote GIT repository to your usual Linux git tree. It will save you a lot of bandwidth and download time:

$ git remote add linux4microchip https://github.com/linux4microchip/linux.git
$ git remote update linux4microchip
Fetching linux4icrochip
From https://github.com/linux4microchip/linux
 * [new branch]                linux-5.10-mchp -> linux4microchip/linux-5.10-mchp
 * [new branch]                linux-5.15-mchp -> linux4microchip/linux-5.15-mchp
 * [new branch]                linux-6.1-mchp -> linux4microchip/linux-6.1-mchp
 * [new branch]                master     -> linux4microchip/master

If you want to use another branch, you can list them and use one of them by doing this:

$ git branch -r
  origin/HEAD -> origin/master
  origin/linux-5.10-mchp
  origin/linux-5.15-mchp
  origin/linux-6.1-mchp
  origin/master
$ git checkout origin/linux-6.1-mchp -b linux-6.1-mchp
Branch linux-6.1-mchp set up to track remote branch linux-6.1-mchp from origin.
Switched to a new branch 'linux-6.1-mchp'

Setup ARM Cross Compiler

• Ubuntu:
  In Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, you can install the ARM Cross Compiler by doing:

  sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
  export CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi-
     

• Others:
  For others, you can download the ARM cross compiler and setup the environment by doing:

  wget -c https://developer.arm.com/-/media/Files/downloads/gnu/11.2-2022.02/binrel/gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf.tar.xz?rev=ffc49e4af4cb4c298c2110a4d887716c&hash=4999788F321A7617C04CA172E31F6B22520741FF
  export CROSS_COMPILE=`pwd`/gcc-arm-11.2-2022.02-x86_64-arm-none-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabihf-
     

Configure and Build the Linux kernel

Now you have to configure the Linux kernel according to your hardware. We have two default configuration at91 SoC in arch/arm/configs

arch/arm/configs/at91_dt_defconfig
arch/arm/configs/sama5_defconfig
arch/arm/configs/sama7_defconfig

• at91_dt_defconfig: for SAM9 (ARM926) series chips
• sama5_defconfig: for SAMA5 series chips
• sama7_defconfig: for SAMA7 series chips

At this step, you can modify default configuration using the menuconfig

$ make ARCH=arm menuconfig

Now, in the menuconfig dialog, you can easily add or remove some features. Once done, Move to <Exit> with arrows and press this button hitting the Enter key to exit from this screen.

Build the Linux kernel image, before you build you need set up the cross compile toolchain, check this section.

$ make ARCH=arm

[..]

  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/Image is ready
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready

Now you have an usable compressed kernel image zImage.

If you need an uImage you can run this additional step:

make ARCH=arm uImage LOADADDR=0x20008000

[..]

  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/zImage is ready
  UIMAGE  arch/arm/boot/uImage
Image Name:   Linux-6.1.22-linux4microchip-20
Created:      Wed May  4 21:18:58 2022
Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
Data Size:    5069704 Bytes = 4950.88 KiB = 4.83 MiB
Load Address: 20008000
Entry Point:  20008000
  Kernel: arch/arm/boot/uImage is ready

make ARCH=arm dtbs

[..]

  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-kizbox2-2.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-kizbox3-hs.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-nattis-2-natte-2.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d27_som1_ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d27_wlsom1_ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d2_icp.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d2_ptc_ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d2_xplained.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d3_xplained.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-dvk_som60.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-gatwick.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-tse850-3.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-wb50n.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d31ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d33ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d34ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d35ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d36ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/sama5d36ek_cmp.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d4_ma5d4evk.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d4_xplained.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama5d4ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-vinco.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sama7g5ek.dtb
  DTC     arch/arm/boot/dts/at91-sam9x60_curiosity.dtb

[..]

If the building process is successful, the final images can be found under arch/arm/boot/ directory.

Build Yocto/Poky rootfs from sources

Note that building an entire distribution is a long process. It also requires a big amount of free disk space.

The support for Atmel AT91 SoC family is included in a particular Yocto layer: meta-atmel. The source for this layer are hosted on Linux4SAM GitHub account: https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel

Building environment

A step-by-step comprehensive installation is explained in the Yocto Project Quick Build. The following lines have to be considered as an add-on that is AT91 specific or that can facilitate your setup.

Prerequisite

Here are the reference pages for setting up a Yocto building environment: What You Need and How You Get It.

add git-lfs to the package requirement list from whichever Linux distribution you use.

For instance, on Ubuntu or debian, these packages need to be installed on your development host:

sudo apt-get install gawk wget git-core git-lfs diffstat unzip texinfo gcc-multilib \
     build-essential chrpath socat cpio python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect \
     xz-utils debianutils iputils-ping python3-git python3-jinja2 libegl1-mesa libsdl1.2-dev \
     pylint3 xterm

Step by step build procedure

here is a copy of the README procedure available directly in the meta-atmel layer. This file in the meta-atmel layer repository must be considered as the reference and the following copy can be out-of-sync.

starting with Linux4SAM 2021.04 release, the meta-atmel layer supports Yocto templates, so make sure you create a new build environment using oe-init-build-env

This layer provides support for Microchip microprocessors (aka AT91)
====================================================================

For more information about the Microchip MPU product line see:
http://www.microchip.com/design-centers/32-bit-mpus
Linux & Open Source on Microchip microprocessors:
http://www.linux4sam.org


Supported SoCs / MACHINE names
==============================
Note that most of the machine names below, have a SD Card variant that can be
built by adding an "-sd" suffix to the machine name.
- SAMA5D2 product family / sama5d2-xplained, sama5d2-xplained-emmc, sama5d27-som1-ek-sd, sama5d27-som1-ek-optee-sd, sama5d2-ptc-ek, sama5d2-icp, sama5d27-wlsom1-ek-sd, sama5d29-curiosity-sd
- SAMA5D4 product family / sama5d4ek, sama5d4-xplained
- SAMA5D3 product family / sama5d3xek, sama5d3-xplained
- AT91SAM9x5 product family (AT91SAM9G15, AT91SAM9G25, AT91SAM9X25, AT91SAM9G35 and AT91SAM9X35) / at91sam9x5ek
- AT91SAM9RL / at91sam9rlek
- AT91SAM9G45 / at91sam9m10g45ek
- SAM9X60 / sam9x60ek, sam9x60-curiosity
- SAMA7G5 / sama7g5ek-sd, sama7g5ek-emmc, sama7g5ek-ospi


Sources
=======
- meta-atmel
URI: https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel.git
Branch: kirkstone


Dependencies
============
This Layer depends on :
- poky
URI: https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
Branch: kirkstone
Tag:yocto-4.0.13

- meta-openembedded
URI: https://git.openembedded.org/meta-openembedded
Branch: kirkstone
Tag/commit:79a6f60dabad9e5b0e041efa91379447ef030482

- meta-arm (for optee components)
URI: https://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-arm
Branch: kirkstone
Tag:yocto-4.0.1

Build procedure
===============

0/ Create a directory
mkdir my_dir
cd my_dir

1/ Clone yocto/poky git repository with the proper branch ready
git clone https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky && cd poky && \
git checkout -b kirkstone yocto-4.0.13 && cd -

2/ Clone meta-openembedded git repository with the proper branch ready
git clone git://git.openembedded.org/meta-openembedded && \
cd meta-openembedded && git checkout -b kirkstone 79a6f6 && cd -

3/ Clone meta-atmel layer with the proper branch ready
git clone https://github.com/linux4sam/meta-atmel.git -b kirkstone

4/ Clone meta-arm layer with the proper branch ready
git clone https://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-arm && cd meta-arm && \
git checkout -b kirkstone yocto-4.0.1 && cd -

5/ Enter the poky directory to configure the build system and start the build process
cd poky
If not created yet, add a new "build-microchip" directory:
mkdir build-microchip
Else, if it's the first time you use Yocto Project templates, and if the
build-microchip directory remains from a previous use, we advise you to start
from a fresh directory. Keep your build-microchip/conf/local.conf file for
reference.

6/ Inside the .templateconf file, you will need to modify the TEMPLATECONF
variable to match the path to the meta-atmel layer "conf" directory:
export TEMPLATECONF=${TEMPLATECONF:-../meta-atmel/conf}

7/ Initialize build directory
source oe-init-build-env build-microchip

8/ To build a small image provided by Yocto Project:
[MACHINE=] bitbake core-image-minimal

Example for sama5d2-xplained-sd SD card image:
MACHINE=sama5d2-xplained-sd bitbake core-image-minimal

9/ To build the microchip image with no graphics support:
[MACHINE=] bitbake microchip-headless-image

Example for sama5d2-xplained-sd SD card image:
MACHINE=sama5d2-xplained-sd bitbake microchip-headless-image

10/ To build the microchip image with graphics support (EGT):
[MACHINE=] bitbake microchip-graphics-image

Example for sama5d2-xplained-sd SD card image:
MACHINE=sama5d2-xplained-sd bitbake microchip-graphics-image

Typical bitbake output
======================
Build Configuration:
BB_VERSION           = "2.0.0"
BUILD_SYS            = "x86_64-linux"
NATIVELSBSTRING      = "universal"
TARGET_SYS           = "arm-poky-linux-gnueabi"
MACHINE              = "sam9x60-curiosity-sd"
DISTRO               = "poky-atmel"
DISTRO_VERSION       = "4.0.13"
TUNE_FEATURES        = "arm armv5 thumb dsp"
TARGET_FPU           = "soft"
meta                 
meta-poky            
meta-yocto-bsp       = "heads/kirkstone-4.0.13:e51bf557f596c4da38789a948a3228ba11455e3c"
meta-oe              
meta-networking      
meta-webserver
meta-python
meta-initramfs       = "79a6f60dabad9e5b0e041efa91379447ef030482:79a6f60dabad9e5b0e041efa91379447ef030482"
meta-atmel           = "heads/linux4microchip-2023.10-rc3:c94eec92946f6469d8adb30490d26f55021e1299"
meta-multimedia      = "79a6f60dabad9e5b0e041efa91379447ef030482:79a6f60dabad9e5b0e041efa91379447ef030482"
meta-arm
meta-arm-toolchain   = "heads/yocto-4.0.2:96aad3b29aa7a5ee4df5cf617a6336e5218fa9bd"

Contributing
============
To contribute to this layer you should submit the patches for review to:
the github pull-request facility directly or the forum. Anyway, don't forget to
Cc the maintainers.

Microchip Forum:
https://www.microchip.com/forums/f542.aspx

for some useful guidelines to be followed when submitting patches:
http://www.openembedded.org/wiki/How_to_submit_a_patch_to_OpenEmbedded

Maintainers:
Hari Prasath G E 
Nicolas Ferre 

When creating patches insert the [meta-atmel] tag in the subject, for example
use something like:
git format-patch -s --subject-prefix='meta-atmel][PATCH' 

Using SAM-BA to flash components to board

Install SAM-BA software in your PC

In addition to the official SAM-BA pages on http://www.microchip.com, we maintain information about SAM-BA in the SoftwareTools page.

use SAM-BA 3.5.y onwards. You can download it here: SAM-BA 3.x release page.

Launch SAM-BA tools

• According to this section make sure that the chip can execute the SAM-BA Monitor.