Boot iMX8 from SD or USB

I am trying to make some changes to the OpenEmbedded build and would like to develop off of an alternative boot source.

I followed this guide: High performance, low power Embedded Computing Systems | Toradex Developer Center to build apalis-imx8 off the Apalis-iMX8_Console-Image_3.04b.254-20200421 tag.

I then followed the “Using wic Files” section on this guide: Boot From an SD Card / USB Stick / SATA drive | Toradex Developer Center to boot from SD or USB. Unfortunately, run sdboot or run usb_boot do not appear to be present in the UBOOT I am running U-Boot 2018.03-toradex_imx_v2018.03_4.14.98_2.3.0_bringup+gd626574ba1 (Apr 17 2020 - 19:28:04 +0000)

How do I boot from SD or USB on Apalis iMX8?

Hi fettersa,

sdboot is depricated please use distroboot instead.

Best Regrads,

Matthias

I was able to boot off an SD card by:

  1. Inserting SD card with bootable image (created using wic files) while board is off
  2. Booting board and stopping in U-Boot
  3. Executing run distro_bootcmd

The article you linked states that the devices are scanned for an appropriate boot file in the following order:

  1. Internal flash memory (raw NAND or eMMC)
  2. External SD card
  3. External USB storage

I still have an installed BSP on the eMMC, but was able to boot from the SD card. Is this because I installed the BSP on the eMMC via Toradex Easy Installer (and thus have the U-Boot with the alternative order indicated by the note)?

Hi fettersa,

the better and recommended way is to use our Toradex Easy Installer to boot from SD card or USB.
It makes it alot easier and saves you alot of manual steps you need to do.

You can find here everything about the Toradex Easy Installer

And this is how you format the Sd or USB stick to boot with the Toradex Easy Installer

Best Regards,

Matthias