Port Debian 8 to Apalis IMX6

Technical Support
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1

Hi team,

I would like to ask if anyone have tried to port Debian rootfs to use it over any Toradex. I would to know any recommendations or advices.

I would like to make a custom image for Apalis IMX6, using Kernel 3.14 and U-Boot provided from Toradex and combine it with Debian distro (version 8). In detail, my idea is to make a custom kernel (patch it with RT) following the steps described in Toradex’s articles to recompile (using Toradex’s kernel git source), use Uboot and device tree provided by Toradex too and, finally, combine them with Debian’s armhf rootfs to make a booteable customized kernel Debian distro. Have any tried to do so? Please any experience would be appreciated. I would be pleased to share the result and to make a tutorial for distribution.

Thanks for your help.
Regards.

2

Hi

You could follow this NXP community entry.
https://community.freescale.com/docs/DOC-95044

Assuming you already have a Toradex provided Linux image on the module’s eMMC you could change the kernel cmdline in U-Boot to use the Debian rootfs on the SD Card,
e.g. change emmcargs to ip=off root=/dev/mmcblk1p2 rw,noatime rootfstype=ext4 rootwait

Alternatively unpack a Toradex image and replace the content of the rootfs folder with the Debian rootfs. Then you can use the update procedure as described here to deploy U-Boot, kernel and rootfs onto the SD Card.

Max

3

Hi Max,

thanks very much for the response. I will follow your recommendations and let you know the results.

Regards.

4

Hi, We actually have a Debian 8.5 with a custom kernel 4.6.2 running on an Ixora+apalis i.MX6Q. Not tested all the devices, but ethernet, spi, i2c and uarts works.