Getting Started With the AM18x EVM / eXperimenter’s Kit

From Texas Instruments Embedded Processors Wiki

This Getting Started Guide (GSG) walks you through setting up the AM18x EVM/eXperimenter's Kit and installing the software. You should proceed through this guide in the order given for best results. By the end of this Getting Started Guide you will have the EVM/eXperimenter's Kit booting to Linux and the Linux host development environment configured. You should also bookmark the since new articles will continue to appear on this wiki.

Contents 1 Read the EVM overview 2 Setup the EVM Hardware 3 Boot the EVM using out of the box setting 4 Install the Software Development Kit 5 Boot the EVM with a remote filesystem on 6 Building software components 7 Running PSP Components 8 Additional procedures 9 Additional information

Read the EVM overview

EVM Overview - AM18x provides an overview of the AM18x EVM kits and boards.

Setup the EVM Hardware

For information on setting up the AM18x EVM/eXperimenter's Kit hardware, please follow the steps in the ZOOM AM18x eXperimenter Kit QuickStart Guide, which is available for downloading at http://support.logicpd.com/downloads/1293/.

Boot the EVM using out of the box setting

This section describes how to boot the EVM board when you first set it up: AM18x Setup

Install the Software Development Kit

SDK software consist of Linux Platform Support Package (PSP) and Arago Filesystem containing Demo Application. This is available for download at http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/linuxsdk-am1x.html.

Code Sourcery toolchain is provided separately. Check for installation instructions here.

The Linux PSP provides support for Linux kernel, U-Boot, UBL and utilities to flash boot software on the EVM.

The PSP package is available as part of the SDK AM18x_1_10_#_#.tar.gz installation in the DaVinci-PSP-SDK-#.#.#.# directory under the main installation directory. Issue following command for un-taring the installer:

host$ tar -xvzf AM18x_1_10_#_#.tar.gz

As host platforms for the development software, you need both a Windows PC and a Linux machine to build and run all of the components.

• The Windows machine is used to run CCStudio 3.3/CCStudio 4.1, which you will use if you want to build the User Boot Loader (UBL) and Flash writers. CCStudio is also used to burn the boot images (UBL, U-Boot) into the flash using the flash writers provided.

• The Linux host is used for the following:
  • Recompiling U-Boot and the Linux kernel.
  • Hosting the TFTP server required for downloading kernel and file system images from U-Boot using Ethernet.
  • Hosting the NFS server to boot the EVM with NFS as root filesystem
  • Running a serial console terminal application

Details for rebuilding the Qt application software from source is provided at Qt Demo page.

Boot the EVM with a remote filesystem on

Development is very slow if you are constantly re-flashing small changes to applications or projects onto the EVM. To develop faster, and wear out the hardware slower, it is good to mount the device's file system on a development compute.

Setting up AM18x Target File System explains how to set up an NFS target file system for use on the AM1x EVMs.

For information on creating other types of target file systems such as SD/MMC and USB please see the Creating file systems on removable media page.

Building software components

Building PSP components provides procedures for rebuilding the platform software components used on the processors or to flash software on to the EVM.

Running PSP Components

Running PSP Components describes the steps to boot Linux and to how to re-flash UBL and U-boot images if needed.

Additional procedures

Linux Functional Test Bench introduces a set of tools used to verify the various driver features.
Loading Linux kernel modules describes the procedure to load kernel modules into a running kernel.
Restoring factory default U-Boot environment variables describes how to revert to factory default U-Boot environment variables.

The following pages provide additional procedures that apply to a variety of platforms, including the AM18x:

• Setting up a TFTP Server explains how to set up a TFTP server.
• TeraTerm Scripts provides example TeraTerm scripts that can be used with your board.

Additional information

• Additional hardware information can be found at the Logic PD AM18x webpage: http://www.logicpd.com/products
• The standalone version of the PSP device drivers is located here: http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/supportpkg.html
• Also, look around in this DaVinci wiki site for additional information

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