Terminal on HDMI for Development

[allen.morrison]

Howdy,
I’m just starting out with Torizon OS and Toradex boards, but I have experience with Yocto and PetaLinux. Since the Mallow board doesn’t have a populated debug port or USB debugging, is there a way I can launch a terminal on the HDMI screen that can do the same actions as when I’m SSH’d in?
I’m doing network development and it is very challenging since I can only interact with the board through a network port at the moment (lots of careful reboots to prevent locking the network stack into an unreachable state). I’ve tried the Wayland Terminal, but it can’t even run htop or ping it seems.

Software summary

Bootloader: U-Boot
Kernel version: 5.15.148-6.8.0+git.8c5c2dcbf6ba #1-TorizonCore SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 6 10:01:59 UTC 2024
Kernel command line: root=LABEL=otaroot rootfstype=ext4 quiet logo.nologo vt.global_cursor_default=0 plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles splash fbcon=map:3 ostree=/ostree/boot.1/torizon/6dfb90f51108d21ea1dd3435888bb1967c64ffd9dc05912208da7cad457c76dd/0
Distro name: NAME=“TorizonCore”
Distro version: VERSION_ID=6.8.0-build.22
Distro variant: VARIANT=“Docker”
Hostname: verdin-imx8mp-15207913

Hardware info

HW model: Toradex Verdin iMX8M Plus WB on Mallow Development Board
Toradex version: 0070 V1.1A
Serial number: 15207913
Processor arch: aarch64

[ToradexAI]

Hi, I’m the Toradex AI Assistant. The Toradex Support team will follow up with you shortly!

Did you like my answer?

---

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out with your question. To achieve a terminal interface on your HDMI display that can perform network-related tasks similar to SSH, you can utilize the Weston Wayland compositor provided by Torizon. Here’s a step-by-step guide to set this up:

1. Launch the Weston Container: First, ensure that the Weston container is running on your Toradex board. This container provides the graphical environment needed to display applications on your HDMI screen.

   • You can start the Weston container using the following command:

     docker run -d --rm --name=weston --net=host \
     --cap-add CAP_SYS_TTY_CONFIG \
     --device=/dev/dri \
     --device=/dev/input \
     --volume=/tmp:/tmp \
     torizon/weston
     

   • This command sets up the necessary permissions and device access for Weston to manage the display and input devices.

2. Launch a Terminal Application: Once Weston is running, you can launch a terminal application within this environment.

   • Use the following command to start a terminal application like weston-terminal:

     docker exec -it weston weston-terminal
     

   • This will open a terminal window on your HDMI display, allowing you to execute commands directly on the board.

3. Install Additional Tools: If you need tools like htop or ping, you can install them within the Weston container or another container that you run alongside Weston.

   • For example, to install htop, you can enter the terminal and use:

     apt update && apt install htop
     

By following these steps, you should be able to interact with your Toradex board using a terminal on the HDMI display, facilitating your network development tasks without relying solely on SSH access.

I hope this helps with your development work. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Best regards,
Toradex AI Assistant

Please, also check if these links can help you solve your problem:

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[alex.tx]

If you want to have access to the debug UART on Mallow board you can solder 6 pin header

into X11 place holder on the Mallow

And then use TTL to USB adapter like this one.

[michael.tx]

Hi @allen.morrison ,

This work for you?

Best regards,

[allen.morrison]

That works for debugging, thank you!