{"id":128,"date":"2018-02-05T15:43:09","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T23:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/tutorials\/?p=128"},"modified":"2018-02-05T15:43:09","modified_gmt":"2018-02-05T23:43:09","slug":"building-and-deploying-linux-kernel-for-i-mx6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sysprogs.com\/VisualKernel\/tutorials\/imx6\/buildkernel\/","title":{"rendered":"Building and Deploying Linux Kernel for i.MX6"},"content":{"rendered":"

This tutorial shows how to build a Linux kernel with debug symbols for your i.MX6 device and boot into it. We will show it based on the dual-core\u00a0Wandboard<\/a>\u00a0board.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. First of all identify the kernel version that is currently running on your device by running the following command:\n
    uname -r<\/pre>\n
    To minimize compatibility problems it is always recommended to first try building exactly the same kernel version and ensuring that it works. In this example we will use the\u00a0Ubuntu 14 image<\/a>\u00a0that comes with the 3.10.53 kernel.<\/li>\n
  2. Determine whether the device us running a hard float or soft float version of the operating system. The easiest way is to run “gcc -v” on the i.MX6 device and check the reported target:If the target ends with “gnueabihf”, it is a hard-float target. If it ends with “gnueabi”, it is a soft-float one.<\/li>\n
  3. Locate the sources for the kernel version that is running on your device. Normally the board vendor’s website should provide a link. For Wandboard the sources can be found\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  4. On a fast Linux machine install git (apt-get install git) and checkout the sources for the\u00a0same<\/strong>\u00a0version of the kernel that is running on the device. E.g. for the 3.10.53 version this can be done with the following command\n
    git clone https:\/\/github.com\/wandboard-org\/linux.git -b wandboard_imx_3.10.53_1.1.0_ga<\/pre>\n
    <\/li>\n
  5. Download and extract a cross-toolchain that matches the target of your device. Do not confuse\u00a0arm-linux-gnueabi<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0arm-linux-gnueabihf<\/strong>\u00a0toolchains. Note that the kernel version 3.10.53 does not support gcc 5.x, so we will download the latest release from the 4.x branch. You can find the arm-linux-gnueabihf releases of the Linaro toolchain\u00a0here<\/a>. Then add set the CROSS_COMPILE environment variable to the prefix of the toolchain so that\u00a0${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc<\/strong>expression will refer to the gcc from the toolchain.<\/li>\n
  6. Now you are ready to build the kernel. First of all extract the kernel configuration from the i.MX6 device (available as \/proc\/config.gz) and unpack it:\n
    scp ubuntu@wandboard:\/proc\/config.gz .\r\ngunzip config.gz --stdout > .config<\/pre>\n
    <\/li>\n
  7. Before we can build the kernel we need to make the following modifications to the configuration:\n