Buildroot Development

Buildroot is a framework for building embedded Linux systems on Linux platforms. Buildroot consists of a Makefile(*.mk) script and a Kconfig(Config.in) configuration file. You can build a complete Linux system (including boot, kernel, rootfs, and rootfs libraries and applications) that can be burned directly into your machine, just like you would build a Linux kernel, by using the buildroot configuration, menuconfig modifications, and compiling a complete Linux system. For more information on Buildroot development, please refer to the official Buildroot Development Manual.

Hardware Configuration

Recommended hardware configuration for compiling Ubuntu development environment:

  • 64-bit CPU

  • Ubuntu 20.04, do not use Windows Subsystem (WSL)

  • 16GB of RAM

  • 250GB free space for compiling

  • Normal user to compile, do not use root user to compile

Software Configuration

Installation packages

sudo apt update
sudo apt-get install git ssh make gcc libssl-dev liblz4-tool \
expect g++ patchelf chrpath gawk texinfo chrpath diffstat binfmt-support \
qemu-user-static live-build bison flex fakeroot cmake gcc-multilib g++-multilib \
unzip device-tree-compiler libncurses-dev

sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo pip install python-pip pyelftools
sudo apt install python2
sudo apt install python

Get SDK

Email support@neardi.com for development materials

After downloading, check the MD5 code and Neardi-3588-SDK-Linux-${Version}.tar.gz.md5sum for consistency before unzipping:

$ md5sum Neardi-3588-SDK-Linux-${Version}.tar.gz
******************************** Neardi-3588-SDK-Linux-${Version}.tar.gz

Unzip:

tar zxvf Neardi-3588-SDK-Linux-${Version}.tar.gz

Extract:

cd Neardi-3588-SDK-Linux-${Version}
git reset --hard

Switch branches:

branch explain
LZ16000002 Neardi master branch
git checkout LZ16000002

Compile SDK

Select Configuration

./build.sh lunch BoardConfig-rk3588-neardi-linux-lkd3588-t0.mk

Fully Automatic Compilation

For the first compilation of the SDK, it is imperative to compile everything once, otherwise packaging will fail.

Fully automatic compilation will execute all compilations, generating u-boot, kernel, and buildroot.

./build.sh

Partial Compilation

  • Compile u-boot

./build.sh uboot
  • Compile kernel

./build.sh kernel
  • Compile recovery

./build.sh recovery

Compile Buildroot

./build.sh rootfs

Packaging Firmware

RK firmware is packaged in a proprietary format by Rockchip, and can be flashed onto eMMC or SD card using tools provided by Rockchip (Note: Unless specified otherwise, the firmware mentioned on the WIKI by default refers to RK firmware).

# Package RK firmware
./build.sh updateimg

The complete firmware will be saved to  rockdev/update.img

FAQ

Compilation Errors

lz4 Error

Incorrect parameters
Usage :
      lz4 [arg] [input] [output]

input   : a filename
          with no FILE, or when FILE is - or stdin, read standard input
Arguments :
 -1     : Fast compression (default) 
 -9     : High compression 
 -d     : decompression (default for .lz4 extension)
 -z     : force compression
 -f     : overwrite output without prompting 
 -h/-H  : display help/long help and exit
arch/arm64/boot/Makefile:31: recipe for target 'arch/arm64/boot/Image.lz4' failed
make[2]: *** [arch/arm64/boot/Image.lz4] Error 1
make[2]: *** Deleting file 'arch/arm64/boot/Image.lz4'
arch/arm64/Makefile:170: recipe for target 'Image.lz4' failed
make[1]: *** [Image.lz4] Error 2
make[1]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....

Workaround, re-install LZ4 manually:

git clone https://github.com/lz4/lz4.git
cd lz4
make
sudo make install