Mainline buildroot / iMX8MP SOM

[cushychicken]

Just an FYI to all the folks here that the Olimex iMX8MP SOM is capable of booting and running mainline `buildroot` using the `freescale_imx8mpevk_defconfig` image as a starting point.

I used the iMX8MP SOM as a starting point for a design and was having trouble getting PCIe functionality out of the board with the newer kernel. The buildroot-imx configuration provided by Olimex worked flawlessly. (We had to upgrade kernels due to some interop and security concerns.)

Anyway - I'll save the trouble of a long response, but it does seem that the freescale_imx8mpevk_defconfig works, and helps resolve some compatibility issues between the DTS files. There were significant changes in DTS formats and syntax between kernel version 5 and 6 that seem to affect the PCIe phy configuration. Mainline DTS and kernel on buildroot 2024.08 works like a charm.

The mainline buildroot 2024.08 also adds ethernet functionality in Uboot, which is great when you want to tftp upgrades to the board instead of preparing and flashing a brand new image each time.

No response needed - just wanted to pass this guidance along to others.

Thank you again for such a superb piece of open hardware!

[LubOlimex]

We published official Armbian-based Debian 12 images and I've updated the links at the product pages of iMX8MP-SOM-4GB-IND and iMX8MP-SOM-EVB-IND. There is also a link to the sources at our GitHub.

Most things seems to be working fine from what we've tested so far (HDMI + HDMI audio, both GbE connectors, USB 3.0, EMMC/Flash extension header, m2 nVME slot, both CAN drivers and connector, etc).

The only thing that we can confirm is NOT working and NOT supported at the moment is the ES8388 audio - neither the input nor the output (HDMI audio works tho). If someone can get that working we would appreciate it.

[cushychicken]

I haven't tried your Armbian image, but I can confirm that both PCIe and USB work on the freescale_imx8mpevk_defconfig image from buildroot 2024.08, and that's what I really needed to work!