Minnowboard:MinnowMaxYoctoProject

The MinnowBoard-MAX is supported by the Yocto Project and the meta-intel intel-corei7-64 and intel-core2-32 BSPs as of the 1.6 (daisy) release (and later versions).

The MinnowBoard-MAX ships with 64b firmware. If you wish to use it in 32b mode, you will need to download the 32b firmware.

If you are new to the Yocto Project, you should first familiarize yourself with the build environment by working through the Yocto Project Quick Start Guide.

The Yocto Project incorporates a build system and meta data for cross-compiling embedded Linux OS images for a variety of architectures and boards. Additional software packages and hardware support are added through layers. You interact with the build system primarily through the bitbake command.

Exact Steps

Checkout the latest sources of the poky and meta-intel repositories:

$ cd
$ mkdir source
$ cd source
$ git clone -b fido git://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
$ cd poky
$ git clone -b fido git://git.yoctoproject.org/meta-intel

Note: Please replace fido with the release of your choice (daisy or later) release of Yocto project.

Initialize the build environment:

$ source oe-init-build-env

Configure the build environment for the MinnowBoard-MAX. First, add the meta-intel which contains the intel-core* BSPs:

$ echo "BBLAYERS += \"$HOME/source/poky/meta-intel\"" >> conf/bblayers.conf

Second, select the BSP by setting the MACHINE variable. If you want a 64bit build, use:

$ echo "MACHINE = \"intel-corei7-64\"" >> conf/local.conf

Or, if you want 32b images, use:

$ echo "MACHINE = \"intel-core2-32\"" >> conf/local.conf

Now kick off a basic build:

$ bitbake core-image-minimal

The result will be a basic console image located here:

tmp/deploy/images/intel-corei7-64/core-image-minimal-intel-corei7-64.hddimg

You can write this image to a USB key, SATA drive, or SD card using the mkefidisk.sh script included with poky (scripts/contrib/mkefidisk.sh):

$ sudo $HOME/source/poky/scripts/contrib/mkefidisk.sh HOST_DEVICE tmp/deploy/images/intel-corei7-64/core-image-minimal-intel-corei7-64.hddimg TARGET_DEVICE

Where HOST_DEVICE is the device node on the build system, like /dev/sdc or /dev/mmcblk0 and TARGET_DEVICE is the name of the device as the MinnowBoard-MAX will see it, likely /dev/sda or /dev/mmcblk0. You may want to copy mkefidisk.sh somewhere in your PATH to save on typing.

With the boot device provisioned, you can insert the media into the MinnowBoard-MAX and boot. It should detect the media and boot to the bootloader and subsequently the OS automatically, if not, you can do so manually from the EFI shell as follows:

Shell> connect -r
Shell> map -r
Shell> fs0:
Shell> bootx64

Or for a 32 bit image:

Shell> bootia32

Next Steps

Now that you can build a basic image, you can experiment with some of the other example images:

$ bitbake core-image-sato
$ bitbake core-image-sato-sdk

Or create your own image recipes, adding packages to suit your needs. For details on developing with the Yocto Project, please see the Yocto Project Documentation.