wiki:venice

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Gateworks Venice Family Support


Getting Started
Venice Software
Peripherals
User Manuals

Wireless / WiFi Radios
Cellular Modems
GPS
3D Model

  1. Gateworks Venice Family Support
  2. Links
    1. Software
    2. Security
    3. Peripheral Support
    4. Other Info
    5. User Manuals
    6. i.MX8M Mini vs Plus SOM
    7. Entire Raw Index of Venice Wiki Pages
  3. Venice Software
    1. Choosing a BSP
      1. Ubuntu
      2. Buildroot
      3. OpenWrt
      4. Yocto
  4. Third Party Linux Distros
      1. Root filesystem Sources
  5. Mainline Linux Kernel support
  6. Venice Low Power / Sleep Mode
  7. GW7400 Ordering Options

The Gateworks Venice product family utilizes the NXP i.MX8M Mini (i.MX8MM) SoC (System On Chip) family offering a large variety of peripherals with a focus on Networking, Security, and Media. See ​​here for a product comparison matrix.

Links

Please note: This is a subset of information for Venice, however, please visit our Main Wiki for all other information

Software

Security

Peripheral Support

Other Info

User Manuals

i.MX8M Mini vs Plus SOM

Gateworks manufactures two different SOM modules, one with the NXP i.MX8M mini SoC and the other with the i.MX8M Plus SoC. These SOMs can be plugged onto the Gateworks baseboards, GW71xx, GW72xx and GW73xx.

Item Processor USB PCIe Audio / Video CAN Bus GPU NPU DSP
i.MX8M Mini SOM (GW700x) 4x Cortex-A53 core USB 2.0 PCIe 2.0 MIPI-CSI/DSI None 1x shader, OpenGL® ES 2.0, 3D Graphics: GC NanoUltra, 2D Graphics: GC320 None None
i.MX8M Plus SOM (GW702x) 4x Cortex-A53 core USB 3.0 PCIe 3.0 (NOTE1) None Yes (NOTE2) 16 GFLOPS (high-precision) OpenGL® ES 3.1/3.0, Vulkan®, Open CL™ 1.2 FP, OpenVG™ 1.1, 3D Graphics: GC7000UL, 2D Graphics: GC520L 2.3 TOP/s Cadence® Tensilica® HiFi 4 DSP @ 800 MHz
  • NOTE1: PCIe 3.0 is only available on the GW7100. GW72xx, GW73xx, and GW74xx all use a PCIe switch that is a PCIe 2.0 switch. Contact Gateworks Sales for a custom design if PCIe 3.0 is needed.
  • NOTE2: CAN Bus is supported on the i.MX8MP SoC, but there is not a transceiver. Gateworks plans to add a transceiver on an expansion board that plugs onto the expansion header on the GW72xx and GW73xx. CAN will not be supported on the GW71xx.

Entire Raw Index of Venice Wiki Pages

Venice Software

Venice Software is comprised of many pieces, including the following:

  • GSC (Gateworks System Controller) Firmware
  • Boot Firmware (ARM Trusted Firmware, DDR controller Firmware, U-Boot Bootloader)
  • Operating System (including kernel / rootfs)

Ubuntu is pre-installed on all Venice boards before they ship.

Please view the following links for the appropriate software section:

Choosing a BSP

Gateworks offers several Board Support Packages for the Venice Product family. Which one we recommend depends a bit upon what your goal is and what your experience level is. Note: By default Venice boards are pre-programmed with and Ubuntu root filesystem and Gateworks kernel.

Ubuntu

Gateworks offers a pre-built Ubuntu root filesystem using the latest Gateworks kernel as well as instructions on how to build your own Ubuntu based distribution.

Venice pre-built Ubuntu root filesytem image:

  • Recommended for developers trying to heavily leverage opensource software packages or libraries that are not supported by the other BSP's. This is the most user-friendly for developers new to Embedded Linux but will not produce a very trimmed down filesystem image.
  • The Gateworks Ubuntu focual image can boot to login in about 26 seconds (removing the U-Boot bootdelay) and takes about 1.5GiB of FLASH storage. Several seconds of that time is spent waiting for the network interfaces to come up which can be disabled. Much of the required space is taken up by various packages we pre-install however it is difficult to get Ubuntu pruned down below 1GiB or booting much faster.
  • Able to use mainline kernel.
  • Supports all Venice features.
  • Documentation provided to use Ubuntu pre-built packages and debootstrap to create a root filesystem in minutes
  • Native compilation: no SDK or cross-toolchain needed

Buildroot

Gateworks provides documentation on building your own compact and customized Linux distribution using Buildroot:

  • intended for custom applications (low flash and memory footprint)
  • a standard buildroot image can boot to login in about 8 seconds (removing the U-Boot bootdelay) and can take less than 32MiB of FLASH storage (both of which can be reduced by turning off the console output and reducing the kernel features)
  • Fairly up-to-date and/or vanilla kernel support
  • Wide variety of packages
  • Console-based build system
  • exportable Toolchain available to build apps on a development host outside of the buildroot environment

OpenWrt

  • Currently supported on GW71xx, GW72xx, GW73xx. GW74xx with i.MX8M Plus support is coming soon.
  • Venice OpenWrt Wiki Page with Downloads
  • Intended for wireless routers and access points (low flash and memory footprint)
  • Recommended for networking users wanting to create a headless router, VPN, basestation, wireless access point and more. Produces by far the smallest storage and memory footprint but users new to Embedded Linux will have a bit of a learning curve
  • Fairly up-to-date and/or vanilla kernel support
  • Latest wireless drivers (via linux-backports)
  • Custom application config and init system (nice for small footprint, but can make adding support for additional packages more work)
  • Wide variety of packages (including a fairly nice web-admin)
  • Console-based build system (expect 60mins to build BSP for a specific board family)
  • Downloadable SDK and Toolchain available to build apps on a development host without building the entire BSP
  • easy firmware upgrade (sysupgrade) and factory-default reset mechanism
  • Pre-built images available

Yocto

While Gateworks doesn't officially publish a Yocto BSP, the NXP Yocto rootfs can be used with a Gateworks kernel and a system can be booted. More information is here

Third Party Linux Distros

While Gateworks cannot fully support all Linux distros, it is relatively simple to overlay a Gateworks Venice kernel onto any non-Gateworks third party Linux distro rootfs image.

The following links will describe what is needed:

  1. Linux kernel supporting Venice: linux/kernel
  2. Root Filesystem: see below
  3. Bootable media: linux/blockdev

Root filesystem Sources

There are several sources of pre-built root filesystems that are compatible with Venice. As Venice uses an ARM 64bit based SoC, you need to use something that is compatible with an ARMv8 instruction set. Many pre-built distributions will reference 'arm64' which means 'ARM 64-bit' which is appropriate for the i.MX8MM SoC.

Some popular third-party sources:

  • ​Ubuntu Core - this is a minimal filesystem that you can build off of at runtime by adding packages from various repositories.
  • ​Linaro - Linaro has several root filesystems including server, nano, developer, core, and ALIP. Each root filesystem will have different things installed for different purposes. Choose carefully which will work for you.

Notes:

  • some root filesystems may require you to manually add a user before booting (ie Ubuntu Core)

Mainline Linux Kernel support

Gateworks actively participates in the development of the Linux kernel.

The following table shows what i.MX8MM support is available in the mainline kernel:

Item DT compatible Driver Kconfig Kernel
mmc fsl,imx7d-usdhc drivers/mmc/host/sdhci-esdhc-imx.c CONFIG_MMC_SDHCI_ESDHC_IMX
sdma fsl,imx7d-sdma drivers/dma/imx-sdma.c CONFIG_IMX_SDMA
uart fsl,imx6q-uart imx-uart: drivers/tty/serial/imx.c CONFIG_SERIAL_IMX
ethernet fsl,imx6sx-fec fec: drivers/net/ethernet/freescale/fec_main.c CONFIG_FEC
i2c fsl,imx21-i2c drivers/i2c/busses/i2c-imx.c CONFIG_I2C_IMX
spi fsl,imx51-ecspi drivers/spi/spi-imx.c CONFIG_SPI_IMX
gpio fsl,imx35-gpio drivers/gpio/gpio-mxc.c CONFIG_GPIO_MXC
wdog fsl,imx21-wdt drivers/watchdog/imx2_wdt.c CONFIG_IMX2_WDT
pwm fsl,imx27-pwm drivers/pwm/pwm-imx27.c CONFIG_PWM_IMX27
audio dai fsl,imx8mq-sai fsl-sai: sound/soc/fsl/fsl_sai.c CONFIG_SND_SOC_FSL_SAI 5.4
caam fsl,sec-v4.0 drivers/crypto/caam/* CONFIG_CRYPTO_DEV_FSL_CAAM 5.6
ddrc (Dyanmic Scaling for DDR controller) fsl,imx8m-ddrc drivers/devfreq/imx8m-ddrc.c ARM_IMX8M_DDRC_DEVFREQ 5.6
thermal fsl,imx8mm-tmu drivers/thermal/imx8mm_thermal.c IMX8MM_THERMAL 5.7
fspi (Flex SPI) nxp,imx8mm-fspi drivers/spi/spi-nxp-fspi.c SPI_NXP_FLEXSPI 5.7
gpcv2 (power domain) fsl,imx8mm-gpc drivers/soc/imx/gpcv2 CONFIG_IMX_GPCV2_PM_DOMAINS 5.15
usb fsl,imx7d-usb fsl,imx7d-usbmisc drivers/usb/chipidea/{ci_hdrc_imx,usbmisc_imx}.c CONFIG_USB_CHIPIDEA_IMX 5.15
blk-ctl (power domain / reset) fsl,imx8mm-*-blk-ctrl drivers/soc/imx/imx8m-blk-ctrl CONFIG_SOC_IMX8M 5.16
gpu vivante,gc drivers/gpu/drm/etnaviv/* CONFIG_DRM_ETNAVIV 5.16
mipi csi bridge fsl,imx7-csi drivers/staging/media/imx/imx7-media-csi.c CONFIG_VIDEO_IMX7_CSI 5.17
vpu/hantro-g1/g1 (mpeg2/h264 video decoder) nxp,imx8mm-vpu-g* drivers/staging/media/hantro/hantro_drv.c CONFIG_VIDEO_HANTRO_IMX8M 5.18
imx8mm pci fsl,imx8mm-pcie drivers/pci/controller/dwc/pci-imx6.c CONFIG_PCI_IMX6 5.18
imx8mp pci phy fsl,imx8mp-pcie-phy drivers/phy/freescale/phy-fsl-imx8m-pcie.c CONFIG_PHY_FSL_IMX8M_PCIE 6.2
imx8mp pci fsl,imx8mp-pcie drivers/pci/controller/dwc/pci-imx6.c CONFIG_PCI_IMX6 6.1
imx8mp pci phy fsl,imx8mp-pcie-phy drivers/phy/freescale/phy-fsl-imx8m-pcie.c CONFIG_PHY_FSL_IMX8M_PCIE 6.2
mipi dsi bridge fsl,imx8mp-mipi-dsim drivers/gpu/drm/bridge/samsung-dsim.c CONFIG_DRM_SAMSUNG_DSIM v6.4
imx8mm-venice-gw71xx-0x dt 5.12
imx8mm-venice-gw72xx-0x dt 5.12
imx8mm-venice-gw73xx-0x dt 5.12
imx8mp-venice-gw74xx-0x dt 5.19
vpu/hantro-h11 (jpeg video encoder) not yet upstream as of v6.1
  1. While support may not be officially upstream yet, the Gateworks kernel does have support for these devices

See also:

Venice Low Power / Sleep Mode

The Venice family has a M4/M7 coprocessor that may allow for low power / sleep functions. Gateworks has not done any testing or software development on the M4/M7 side of things, but you would be welcome to use it. You may find more information on the following links:

GW7400 Ordering Options

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