# meta-sifive **Repository Path**: stephenxi2019/meta-sifive ## Basic Information - **Project Name**: meta-sifive - **Description**: No description available - **Primary Language**: Unknown - **License**: Not specified - **Default Branch**: master - **Homepage**: None - **GVP Project**: No ## Statistics - **Stars**: 0 - **Forks**: 0 - **Created**: 2020-04-03 - **Last Updated**: 2020-12-20 ## Categories & Tags **Categories**: Uncategorized **Tags**: None ## README # SiFive OpenEmbedded Layer It's a minimal [meta-sifive](https://github.com/sifive/meta-sifive) layer on top of [meta-riscv](https://github.com/riscv/meta-riscv) to provide additional modifications and new disk image targets. Using OE you will be able to: - build predefined disk images for QEMU and [SiFive HiFive Unleashed](https://www.sifive.com/boards/hifive-unleashed) development board (incl. [HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board](https://www.crowdsupply.com/microsemi/hifive-unleashed-expansion-board) from Microsemi); - build custom disk images with additional software packages from various third-party OE layers; - quickly launch QEMU VM instance with your built disk image; - build bootloader binaries (ZSBL, FSBL, OpenSBI, U-Boot); - build Device Tree Binary (DTB); - build Linux kernel images; - easily modify disk partition layout. > [Berkeley Boot Loader (BBL)](https://github.com/riscv/riscv-pk) is replaced by [OpenSBI](https://github.com/riscv/opensbi) and uSD (microSD) disk images now also incl. [FSBL](https://github.com/sifive/freedom-u540-c000-bootloader). ZSBL is also built, but it's not possible to use it as it resides in ROM. For more information on particular release see `ReleaseNotes` directory in [freedom-u-sdk](https://github.com/sifive/freedom-u-sdk) repository on GitHub. For advanced OE usage we advice to look into the following third-party manuals: - [BitBake User Manual 2.7.1 by Yocto](https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.7.1/bitbake-user-manual/bitbake-user-manual.html) - [Yocto Project Reference Manual 2.7.1 by Yocto](https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.7.1/ref-manual/ref-manual.html) - [Yocto Project Complete Documentation \(MegaManual\) Set 2.7.1 by Yocto](https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.7.1/mega-manual/mega-manual.html) - [A practical guide to BitBake by Harald Achitz](https://a4z.bitbucket.io/docs/BitBake/guide.html) ## Quick Start Install `repo` command from Google if not available on your host system. Please follow [the official instructions](https://source.android.com/setup/downloading#installing-repo) by Google. Then install a number of packages for BitBake (OE build tool) to work properly on your host system. BitBake itself depends on Python 3. Once you have Python 3 installed BitBake should be able to tell you most of the missing packages. > For Ubuntu 18.04 (or newer) install python3-distutils package. Detailed instructions for various distributions can be found in "[Required Packages for the Build Host](https://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/2.7.1/ref-manual/ref-manual.html#required-packages-for-the-build-host)" section in Yocto Project Reference Manual. ### Creating Workspace This needs to be done every time you want a clean setup based on the latest layers. ```bash mkdir riscv-sifive && cd riscv-sifive repo init -u git://github.com/sifive/meta-sifive -b master -m tools/manifests/sifive.xml repo sync ``` ### Creating a Working Branch If you want to make modifications to existing layers then creating working branches in all repositories is advisable. ```bash repo start work --all ``` ### Updating Existing Workspace If you want to pull in the latest changes in all layers. ```bash cd riscv-sifive repo sync repo rebase ``` ### Setting up Build Environment ```bash . ./meta-sifive/setup.sh ``` ### Configuring BitBake Parallel Number of Tasks/Jobs There are 3 variables that control the number of parallel tasks/jobs BitBake will use: `BB_NUMBER_PARSE_THREADS`, `BB_NUMBER_THREADS` and `PARALLEL_MAKE`. The last two are the most important, and both are set to number of cores available on the system. You can set them in your `$BUILDDIR/conf/local.conf` or in your shell environment similar to how `MACHINE` is used (see next section). Example: ```bash PARALLEL_MAKE="-j 4" BB_NUMBER_THREADS=4 MACHINE=freedom-u540 bitbake demo-coreip-cli ``` Leaving defaults could cause high load averages, high memory usage, high IO wait and could make your system unresponsive due to resources overuse. The defaults should be changed based on your system configuration. ### Building Disk Images There are two disk image targets added by meta-sifive layer: - `demo-coreip-cli` - basic command line image (**recommended**); - `demo-coreip-xfce4` - basic graphical disk image with [Xfce 4](https://www.xfce.org/) desktop environment (requires HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board with supported GPUs, for example, **Radeon HD 6450** or Radeon HD 5450). There are two machine targets currently tested: - `qemuriscv64` - RISC-V 64-bit (RV64GC) for QEMU virt machine; - `freedom-u540` - SiFive HiFive Unleashed development board with or without HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board from Microsemi. > It's not possible to use disk images built for `freedom-u540` with QEMU 4.0 and instructions provided below. > > Building disk images is CPU intensive, requires <10GB of sources downloaded over the Internet and <110GB of local storage. Building disk image takes a single command which may take anything from 30 minutes to several hours depending on your hardware. Examples: ```bash MACHINE=qemuriscv64 bitbake demo-coreip-cli MACHINE=freedom-u540 bitbake demo-coreip-cli MACHINE=freedom-u540 bitbake demo-coreip-xfce4 ``` ### Running in QEMU OE provides easy to use wrapper for QEMU: ```bash MACHINE=qemuriscv64 runqemu nographic slirp ``` ### Running on Hardware You will find all available build fragments (incl. disk images) in `$BUILDDIR/tmp-glibc/deploy/images/$MACHINE` where `MACHINE` is `freedom-u540` for this particular case. Disk images files use `-.` format, for example, `demo-coreip-cli-freedom-u540.wic.gz`. We are interested in `.wic.gz` disk images for writing to uSD card. > Be very careful while picking /dev/sdX device! Look at dmesg, lsblk, blkid, GNOME Disks, etc. before and after plugging in your uSD card to find a proper device. Double check it to avoid overwriting any of system disks/partitions! > > Unmount any mounted partitions from uSD card before writing! > > We advice to use 16GB or 32GB uSD cards. 8GB cards (shipped with HiFive Unleashed) can still be used with `demo-coreip-cli` CLI images. Finally write uSD card: ```bash zcat demo-coreip-cli-freedom-u540.wic.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=512K iflag=fullblock oflag=direct conv=fsync status=progress ``` You will need to modify MSEL to allow using FSBL and OpenSBI + U-Boot bootloaders from uSD card instead of SPI-NOR Flash chip: ``` USB LED Mode Select Ethernet +===|___|==****==+-+-+-+-+-+-+=================|******|===+ | | | | | |X| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | HFXSEL->|X|X|X|X| |X| |______| | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | RTCSEL-----/ 0 1 2 3 <--MSEL | | | ``` You can login with `root` account. The password is `sifive`. ### Connecting Using Serial Console Connect your HiFive Unleashed to your PC using microUSB-USB cable to access serial console. For macOS, run: `screen -L /dev/tty.usbserial-*01 115200` For Linux, run: `screen -L /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI_Dual_RS232-HS-if01-port0 115200` The above commands might vary depending on your exact setup. `-L` command will log all output to `screenlog.0` in your current working directory. To quit screen, hit `Ctrl - A` followed by `\` symbol. Finally agree to terminate all windows by typing `y`. ### Connecting Using SSH SSH daemon is started automatically. The HiFive Unleashed behaves like any other network capable device (such as PC, laptop, and Single Board Computers like Raspberry Pi). Connect your HiFive Unleashed to your network (e.g. a router) and it will acquire IPv4 + DNS configuration using DHCP protocol. You can use your router management panel to get assigned IPv4 address or use the serial console to acquire it directly from the HiFive Unleashed (use `ip addr` command to print active network information). Finally you can SSH to the machine: ``` ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o "UserKnownHostsFile /dev/null" root@ ``` ### Supported GPUs Currently on CAICOS family of GPUs from AMD are supported. In particular **Radeon HD 6450** is the most widely used and is highly recommended today. Other GPUs from the same family might also work. That could be: HD64xxM, HD7450, HD8450, R5 230, R5 235, R5 235X ### Online Resizing of rootfs (Root File Partition) It is highly advised to resize partitions offline (i.e. before booting the system). If you already booted the system and cannot do offline resizing then the following instructions should resize rootfs (root file partition) to full uSD capacity: ```bash sgdisk -v /dev/mmcblk0 sgdisk -e /dev/mmcblk0 parted /dev/mmcblk0 resizepart 4 100% resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p4 sync ``` ## Contributions & Feedback If you want to file issues, send patches and make feature/enhancement requests use [meta-sifive](https://github.com/sifive/meta-sifive) or [freedom-u-sdk](https://github.com/sifive/freedom-u-sdk) repositories on GitHub. You are also welcome to join [SiFive Forums ](https://forums.sifive.com/) there we have [HiFive Unleashed](https://forums.sifive.com/c/hifive-unleashed) category for discussions. ## Known Issues 1. Avoid overclocking SOC using CPUFreq if you are using HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board from Microsemi as this will hang the board. Hard reset will be required. 2. If Xfce4 desktop disk image is used with HiFive Unleashed Expansion Board and GPU then rebooting is required after the 1st boot. 3. OpenEmbedded Core (and thus meta-sifive) does not support eCryptFS or any other file system without long file names support. File systems must support filenames up to 200 characters in length. 4. BitBake requires UTF-8 based locale (e.g. `en_US.UTF-8`). You can choose any locale as long as it is UTF-8. This usually happens in containers (e.g. ubuntu:18.04). You can verify your locale by running `locale` command. On Ubuntu 18.04 you can change locale following these instructions: ```bash apt update apt install locales locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8 export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" locale ``` You can change system default locale with `dpkg-reconfigure locales` command.