we are deciding which SoM to choose for our nextgen devices.
We are evaluating the colibri IMX7D module, and I have a question related to the possibile flow for mass production and programming.
Consider that in the future we would have developed a distro based on OpenEmbedded/Yocto and that we want, once the modules arrive, flash this distro onto the module itself.
Consider that the people that will do this job are not required to know anything about linux or ARM or u-boot.
What I’ve read from the forum is that there is no possibility to boot from a SD card: the u-boot always starts from the internal memory, then the u-boot prompt must be accessed and a bunch of commands must be given. That is not acceptable for us, in production.
What I was thinking about was something like that:
the module arrives
someone put an SD card inside
the SoM is powered on (with a custom carrier board)
the u-boot starts from SD card, that eventually and automatically flashes the internal memory
when finished, a LED on the carrier board is turned on
the process moves to the next SoM
Is there any way to obtain such a deployment flow?
Is there any way to obtain such a deployment flow?
Currently this is not possible without any manual intervention. However in the future we plan to deploy our new Toradex Easy Installer on Colibri iMX7 as well which will allow for exactly such use cases.
@marcel.tx, thanks for your prompt reply.
Actually, from what I’ve seen at the link you shared, even with the EasyInstaller you still need to either have a monitor and keyboard, or at least a VNC connection.
Is there something that I’m missing from the Easy Installer description or it does not actually support the kind of production deployment I’ve described?
My intention is to have an error-proof and parallelizeable method to reduce human interaction just to insert an SD card and press a button, without any PC or terminal of any sort.
Do the future EasyInstaller could provide something like that? If yes, could you provide a schedule for this tool to be deployed?
There should be a PCN about this published shortly. A beta version should be available for download shortly as well. The Toradex Easy Installer will ship pre-installed on the volume production Colibri iMX7 modules.
