I.MX6 Debian Jessie (GPU/VPU) 3.10.17_beta

Following on from the previous jessie rootfs, this is an updated version with the 3.10.17_beta BSP libraries deployed. It should work on most i.mx6 devices providing you have a valid uboot and kernel. Furthermore you can also use it as a test bed for Wayland/Weston development as per my last post.

One of the primary changes in the beta BSP is the inclusion of xrandr support within the X driver. Unfortunately the driver is partially functioning, for example I couldn't get it change resolution without restarting the X server. Another change is the Vivante driver are updated to 4.6.9p13 (see).

As with the previous rootfs:

1. Download and extract the tar file (md5 e1024db60c74df661e884a28eff104f6) onto your boot media
2. Deploy a compatible uboot on your boot media
3. Deploy 3.10.17 beta kernel (or a kernel with the 4.6.9p13 patches merged) on your boot media
4. If required enable serial console support in /etc/inittab (see)
5. Setup networking as required.

By default the system boots to console mode, refer to the previous post on how to verify the rootfs is functioning correctly.

I've included some scripts to allow switching between the fb, x11 and wayland vivante libraries, these are located in /root and self explanatory.

/root/switch_to_wl.sh
/root/switch_to_fb.sh
/root/switch_to_x11.sh

If you choose to use x11 by default XFCE (lightdm) is disabled. To launch it:

service lightdm start

If you have no screen output (assuming HDMI) then (because of the xrandr feature) you will to have to manually configure the screen resolution in xorg.conf. To do this un-comment the screen SubSection and change to the correct resolution.

    SubSection     "Display"
        Modes      "U:1280x720p-60"
    EndSubSection 

If can't find the correct resolution then check the last output from /var/log/xorg.0.log. The current the resolution chosen by the X driver will be shown by the following statements:

[    38.607] (II) VIVANTE(0): Using user preference for initial modes
[    38.608] (II) VIVANTE(0): Output DISP3 BG using initial mode U:1280x720p-60
[    38.768] (II) VIVANTE(0): imxDisplayPreInit: virtual set 1280 x 720, display


The log file may also list all the possible modes available, it does this by reading EDID (assuming HDMI) which seems to be a hit or miss affair depending on your TV/monitor. For example you may see something similar to this: 

[    35.223] (II) VIVANTE(0): Modeline "U:720x576p-50"x0.0   27.00  720 732 796 864  576 581 586 625 -hsync -vsync -csync (31.2 kHz
e)
[    35.224] (II) VIVANTE(0): Modeline "U:1920x1080p-60"x0.0  148.50  1920 2008 2052 2200  1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync -csync
(67.5 kHz e)

Replace the Modes value with correct one from xorg.0.log and restart lightdm. For example:

Modes      "U:1920x1080p-60"

I.MX6 Wayland/Weston (3.10.17_beta)

Among the many items on my to do list was to determine how complete the Wayland support was in latest 3.10.17_beta BSP release. A complete description of Wayland and Weston can be found here.

In short, Weston is a reference implementation of a Wayland compositor. In order to run Weston we need to build Wayland and Weston, as a starting point I found some outdated instructions here. From these instructions and after further investigation it became clear that the freescale Weston implementation relies on a framebuffer backend (compositor-fbdev.c). The wayland libraries seem to be very similar to their framebuffer counterparts and support double and triple buffering.There are 2 possible configurations for the framebuffer backend:

1. A custom render (GAL2D) which use the GC320 GPU + fbdev. There's a couple of patches that implement the render (gal2d-renderer.c). 
2. Use the built-in gl_render which uses EGL/GLES for composition.

I chose to use the gl_render so that the EGL sample(s) could be run. To run weston the following packages need to built (instructions for native compilation are below).

1. wayland 
2. ibxkbcommon 
3. pixman
4. cairo
5. weston

The packages were built for deployment on the debian jessi rootfs which was upgraded to the 3.10.17_beta BSP along a 3.10.17 kernel. Wayland/Weston were built from the master branch which currently are at version 1.4. Here is a short video demonstrating a number of Weston examples running on a UDOO (this was the most convenient device at hand to test with).

Although the video demonstrates a number of Weston examples running well, I encountered high CPU when invoking the  'weston-smoke' example which tests SHM buffer sharing. Furthermore I encountered a few lockups what's unclear is whether these are a result of using the master branches of the deployed packages or a problem within fsl wayland libraries. Given the 3.10.17 BSP is in beta it should be treated as so.

Building and deploying Wayland/Weston

Ensure you have deployed the 3.10.17 Vivante gpu headers and libaries,  ensure symbolic links point to '-wl' libraries eg:

/usr/lib/libVIVANTE.so -> libVIVANTE-wl.so
/usr/lib/libGAL.so -> libGAL-wl.so
/usr/lib/libEGL.so -> libEGL-wl.so
/usr/lib/libEGL.so.1.0 -> libEGL-wl.so


You may need to pull in addition packages to successfully complete compilation. Building cairo/pixman may require pulling in X11 packages. As mentioned these steps were completed on my debian jessi rootfs and should be transferable to other distros.

Build Wayland

export WLD=/usr
git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/wayland/wayland
cd wayland
./autogen.sh --prefix=$WLD --disable-documentation
make && make install
cd ..

Build libxkbcommon

git clone git://github.com/xkbcommon/libxkbcommon
cd libxkbcommon
./autogen.sh
make && make install 
cd ..

Build cairo

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/cairo
cd cairo
./autogen.sh glesv2_CFLAGS="-DLINUX=1 -DEGL_API_FB -DEGL_API_WL" --enable-glesv2 --disable-xcb
make && make install
cd ..

Build pixman

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/pixman
cd pixman
./autogen.sh
make && make install
cd ..

Build Weston

git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/wayland/weston
cd weston

We need patch compositor-fbdev.c so that a EGL handle is retrieved from the framebuffer so that gl_render can use it. See my patch http://pastebin.com/x5gumsye

Now export these variables and build

export LDFLAGS="-lwayland-server -lwayland-client -lwayland-server -lwayland-cursor -lpixman-1"
export COMPOSITOR_LIBS="-lGLESv2 -lEGL -lGAL -lwayland-server -lxkbcommon -lpixman-1"
export COMPOSITOR_CFLAGS="-I $WLD/include -I $WLD/include/pixman-1 -L$SDK_DIR/drivers -DLINUX=1 -DEGL_API_FB -DEGL_API_WL"
export CLIENT_CFLAGS="-I $WLD/include -I $WLD/include/cairo -I $WLD/include/pixman-1"
export CLIENT_LIBS="-lGLESv2 -lEGL -lwayland-client -lwayland-cursor -lxkbcommon -lcairo"
export SIMPLE_EGL_CLIENT_CFLAGS="-DLINUX=1 -DEGL_API_FB -DEGL_API_WL -I $WLD/include"
export SIMPLE_EGL_CLIENT_LIBS="-lGLESv2 -lEGL -lwayland-client -lwayland-cursor"
export IMAGE_LIBS="-lwayland-cursor"
export WESTON_INFO_LIBS="-lwayland-client"
export EGL_TESTS_CFLAGS="-DLINUX=1 -DEGL_API_FB -DEGL_API_WL -I $WLD/include"
export EGL_TESTS_LIBS="-lEGL -lGLESv2 -lwayland-egl -lwayland-client -lcairo"
export TEST_CLIENT_LIBS="-lwayland-client -lcairo"

./autogen.sh --prefix=$WLD --disable-setuid-install --disable-x11-compositor --disable-drm-compositor --disable-rpi-compositor --disable-wayland-compositor --disable-weston-launch --disable-libunwind --disable-xwayland --disable-xwayland-test WESTON_NATIVE_BACKEND="fbdev-backend.so"

make && make install

Before we launch weston, edit the default weston.ini and comment out or remove the following lines (there no gnome terminal or chrome to launch):

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/gnome/24x24/apps/utilities-terminal.png
path=/usr/bin/gnome-terminal

[launcher]
icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/24x24/apps/google-chrome.png
path=/usr/bin/google-chrome

Lets enable double buffering (can also set triple buffering):

export FB_MULTI_BUFFER=2

To launch weston, asumming your are runnnig as root user ( and output to a log file):

export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/tmp; weston --log=weston.log --use-gl

If weston fails to launch, check the log file weston.log.

The following samples ran without problems:

weston-clickdot
weston-cliptest
weston-dnd
weston-editor
weston-flower
weston-scaler
weston-simple-egl
weston-simple-shm
weston-stacking