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Flashing images on Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride 4 (SA8775P)

Obtaining images

To flash AutoSD onto the Ride 4 board, you need two images:

aboot.img
An Android boot image containing the automotive kernel, the initial RAM file system (initramfs), Device Tree Blob (DTB), and the kernel command line. The boot loader reads the image to start the kernel. Flash aboot.img to the boot_a partition.
rootfs.simg
A sparse disk image that grows in size as required to accommodate data without storing empty space. rootfs.simg contains the root file system partition with files installed from RPM packages and files generated for configuration purposes.

Nightly builds also include a qm_var.simg image for the QM partition.

You can obtain these images by using the following methods:

  • Download the nightly images. The AutoSD CI pipeline builds these images each night.
  • Build the images. Use tools provided by AutoSD to build example images or customize your own images.

Downloading nightly images

Download and uncompress prebuilt nightly AutoSD images for Ride 4. Multiple board variants produce separate nightly directories:

  • ride4_sa8650p_sx_r3
  • ride4_sa8775p_sx
  • ride4_sa8775p_sx_r3

Each directory contains aboot.img.xz, rootfs.simg.xz, and qm_var.simg.xz files.

  1. Identify the name of the latest nightly image for your board variant and store the value in a variable called latest. The following example uses the ride4_sa8775p_sx variant:

    $ latest=$(curl -s 'https://autosd.sig.centos.org/AutoSD-10/nightly/RideSX4/?C=M;O=D' | sed -ne \
's|^<img.*href="\(auto-osbuild-ride4_sa8775p_sx-autosd10-qa-regular[^@"]\+/\)".*|\1|p' | head -n1)

  2. Download the images from the Automotive SIG nightly builds repository:

    $ wget -np -R "index.html*" -nH --cut-dirs=3 --recursive \
"https://autosd.sig.centos.org/AutoSD-10/nightly/RideSX4/$latest"

    The command downloads a directory containing the compressed image files.

  3. Uncompress the image files:

    $ xz -d "$latest/aboot.img.xz" "$latest/rootfs.simg.xz" "$latest/qm_var.simg.xz"

Next steps

After you download and uncompress the image files, you can flash them onto the Ride 4 board.

Building images

To build AutoSD images, use Automotive Image Builder, which is available in the automotive-image-builder repository. The repository contains configuration files for multiple Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride 4 board variants.

Prerequisites

  • An AArch64 system with internet access

  1. Install Automotive Image Builder for your OS. For more information, see Introducing Automotive Image Builder.

  2. Clone the sample-images repository:

    $ git clone https://gitlab.com/CentOS/automotive/sample-images.git

  3. Change to the sample-images repository:

    $ cd sample-images

  4. Build disk images, replacing <ride4_variant> with your board target (for example, ride4_sa8775p_sx):

    $ aib-dev build \
    --distro autosd10 \
    --target <ride4_variant> \
    --separate-partitions \
    images/developer.mpp.yml \
    autosd-ride4-developer-regular

    The build command creates the autosd-ride4-developer-regular directory, which contains the aboot.img, rootfs.simg, and qm_var.simg image files.

    Available Ride 4 targets:

    • ride4_sa8650p_sx_r3
    • ride4_sa8775p_sx
    • ride4_sa8775p_sx_r3

Next steps

After you build the image files, you can flash them onto the Ride 4 board.

Flashing images

Flash the AutoSD images onto the Ride 4 board.

For more information about how to install and run ES12 on Ride 4, see the Release Notes on the Qualcomm document viewer site.

Note

Qualcomm credentials are required to access the Qualcomm document viewer site. For more information, see Create a Qualcomm ID.

Prerequisites

  • Qualcomm Snapdragon Ride 4 (SA8775P) development system, running release version ES12 r00021.1a
  • A USB cable
  • android-tools
  • Images that you obtained either through Downloading nightly images or Building images
  1. Connect a USB cable from your workstation to the USB0 port on the Ride 4.

  2. From the workstation, identify the System on Chip (SoC) device:

    $ R4SX_TTY="/dev/$(basename $(readlink /dev/serial/by-id/usb-FTDI_Qualcomm_AIR_8775_*-if01-port0))"

  3. From the workstation, use a TTY application to connect to the SoC device and log in as the root user.

    Note

    The workstation in this step must be connected to the SoC device through USB. The workstation must be configured to use fastboot.

  4. Reboot the SoC device and quickly press and hold the down arrow key until you see boot messages on the terminal window.

  5. From the workstation, verify that the SoC device is in a fastboot state:

    # fastboot devices
c2b86509    fastboot

    Note

    The command returns an ID that confirms device is ready to flash. In this example, the ID is c2b86509.

  6. Flash the boot_a and system_a partitions with the images:

    # fastboot flash boot_a aboot.img
# fastboot flash system_a rootfs.simg

  7. Continue to boot the SoC device:

    # fastboot continue

  8. Log in to the operating system (OS) using user ID root and password password.

Additional Resources:

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