HummingBoard Pro & i.MX8M Plus SOM Quick Start Guide

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Introduction

The following quick start guide provides background information about the HummingBoard Pro.

The guide will give a technical overview about the product and by the end of it you should be able to boot an operating system and begin testing your application.

Revision and Notes

Hardware Setup

Product specifications

Block Diagram

The following figure describes the i.MX8M Pro Block Diagram.

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Visual features overview

Please see below the features overview of the connector side of the HummingBoard Pro.

Print side connector overview of the HummingBoard Pro.

Software Setup

Cable setup and prerequisites

Here is what you will need to power up and use the board:

• Linux or Windows PC

• HummingBoard Pulse with SOM

• 12V Power adapter (HummingBoard Pulse has wide range input of 7V-28V), alternatively you can use a PoE injector to power on the device.

• Micro USB to USB for console, the HummingBoard Pulse has an onboard FTDI chip.

• IP router or IP switch

Boot Select

Before powering up the board for the first time it is recommended to select the boot media. In order to configure the boot media, please refer to HummingBoard Pulse and Ripple Boot Select .

Booting from SD card

Boot Select

Before powering up the board for the first time, it is recommended to select the boot media. To configure the boot media, please refer to HummingBoard Pulse and Ripple Boot Select.

Here is the correct DIP switch position for SD boot:

Once you set the switches, you can apply the following for booting from an SD card.

1. Downloading the Debian image

Download the Debian image by running the following command on your Linux/Windows PC:

• For more Debian releases, please visit Debian Release for i.MX8.

2. Writing the image to the SD card

Use the following commands for writing the image to an SD card:

• For more information, please visit Flashing an SD Card .

3. SD card insertion

Please Insert the SD card into your device.

4. Power connection

Connect your power adaptor to the DC jack, and then connect the adaptor to mains supply.

5. Serial Connection

Please insert the micro USB into your device, then you can refer to Serial Connection for installing necessary serial connection software in Linux/Windows.

Once you installed the necessary serial connection software, you should be able to see the following:

• In order to be able to log in , please insert “root” as a username and password as follows:

Programming eMMC

Boot Linux from uSD and follow the Instructions bellow to Program the eMMC

1. Programming the Bootloader on eMMC Boot Partition:

   # Download the bootloader binary (u-boot-mmc:2:1.bin) from https://images.solid-run.com/IMX8/imx8mp_build: wget http://solid-run-images.sos-de-fra-1.exo.io/IMX8/imx8mp_build/build_date_20241110-rev_9d040a0/u-boot-mmc:2:1-9d040a0.bin # Disable write protection: echo 0 > /sys/class/block/mmcblk2boot0/force_ro # Write the bootloader to the boot partition: dd if=u-boot-mmc:2:1-9d040a0.bin of=/dev/mmcblk2boot0 conv=sync # Re-enable write protection: echo 1 > /sys/class/block/mmcblk2boot0/force_ro # Enable the eMMC boot partition: mmc bootpart enable 1 1 /dev/mmcblk2

2. Programming the Debian Image on the eMMC Main Partition:
   
   

3. Set the boot select to boot from eMMC as documented here and do reset to boot from eMMC.

More Features

Internet

Connect an Ethernet cable to your HummingBoard Pulse (for internet access during boot-up).
Models HummingBoard with WiFi, can be connected via WiFi or wired Ethernet.

• Please check you Ethernet connection.

• Use the following commands in order to keep your system up-to-date:

• For more detailed information, please refer to i.MX8M Debian .

WiFi

• You can connect to WiFi using any application, such as : connmanctl or wpa_spplicant.

An example for connecting to WiFi using wpa_supplicant:

1. To bring a WiFi interface up, run the following :

2. Install the wpa_supplicant package:

3. Edit network interfaces file :

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines to allow wlan as a network connection:

4. Create a configuration file with the relevant ssid:

5. Make sure it works:

Restart your device and it should connect to the wireless network. If it doesn't, repeat above steps or get help from an adult.

• For more information about using wpa_supplicant , you can refer to wpa_supplicant or wpa_supplicant.

Bluetooth

1. For showing all Bluetooth devices, run the following:

2. Choose a device, and turn it on:

3. Set up the Bluetooth name:

4. Make your Bluetooth detectable by other devices:

5. If you want to connect to other devices:

• Start by scanning for other Bluetooth devices:

• Choose a MAC address and connect :

• You can check the communication between the devices by writing :

GPIO Pins Control

In order to be able to control the GPIO pins, please refer to GPIO Pins Control - HummingBoard Pulse/Mate & i.MX8M Plus SOM

Please Note

Cellular Modem

The cellular modem is a more fully featured extension of which contains a cellular module with additional hardware interfaces and a SIM card slot.

You can connect your cellular modem to the mPCIe, and insert a SIM card.

• For some cellular modules to be connected, please refer to Cellular Modules .

SPI

For testing you serial peripheral interface - SPI, please see this documentation SPI from Linux with spidev.

Audio

First, you need to check that the required device is the default one by run:

If the sysdefault:CARD doesn’t set to wm8904 like this example

Then you can play sound with choosing the device who set to wm8904 and generate audio, in the above situation the device is hw:CARD=wm8904audio so the test will work as this:

• NOTE: the “ -c “ flag used to set the number of the channels that you have in your audio output device, in my example I have 2 channels.

If the sysdefault:CARD=wm8904 you can test with this command:

GUI On Debian

There is an option with the Debian image, up to the user, to work with a GUI like Weston, GNOME and etc.
For applying this option do the following steps:

First, connect your device to a screen using the working output (HDMI / uHDMI).

For working with Weston GUI:

1. Install the Weston package.

2. Make a directory for the output of the Weston GUI.

3. Give permissions to this directory.

4. Set the XDG_RUNTIME_DIR env param to your directory.

5. Run Weston.

    

For working with GNOME GUI on top of Xorg:

1. Install Xorg.

2. Install your desired gnome.

   NOTE: ‘gnome-session’ is an example of gnome that we can work with, you can replace the ‘session' with another GNOME extention.

3. Start your GNOME GUI.

   • For logging in you need a user on your device to log into it. You can create one before step 3 by this command (replace the ‘username’ with name that you want) :

   • You can jump between GUIs that you install (like gnome-session) by the setting button that locates in the down right corner of the home screen.

    

Basler Camera

For getting started with the Camera Module on your board, please see this documentation Basler Camera Quick Start Guide.

TLV EEPROM Support

Starting from April 01. 2022, the EEPROMs on Carriers, i.MX8M Plus SoMs are being programmed with identifying information such as the product name and SKUs to allow for programmatic identification of hardware. Check our iMXMP EEPROM documentation for additional information.

List Of Supported OS

Build from source

• i.MX8M Software

Documentation

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