I’m just getting familiar with Torizon OS and loaded an iMX8 with easy pairing. I supplied the pairing code to your website that does provisioning, it traded tokens successfully with the iMX8 which started its process. Unfortunately it timed out after a couple of minutes.
I was surprised on the IMX8 Side that it does not boot to a usable Linux Os with a command line and Ui interface, but instead blocks waiting to be provisioned. Is there any way I can determine why the setup timed out?
I am planning to use the Visual Studio extension to configure the system. Did I pick the wrong Torizon OS image and is easy pairing compatible with using Visual studio?
if I want to do OTA to update units in the field, do I need to use the pairing/cloud
how does TorizonCore fit into the development/ field update paradigm?
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Hello John,
Thank you for reaching out with your questions about Torizon OS. Let’s address each of your concerns:
Device Boot and Provisioning Timeout: When using Torizon with easy pairing, the device initially waits for provisioning, which is why it doesn’t boot into a typical Linux OS with a command line or UI. If the provisioning process times out, it might be due to network issues or incorrect configuration. To troubleshoot, ensure your device has a stable internet connection and that the pairing code is correctly entered. You can also check logs via the serial console or SSH to diagnose further.
Compatibility with Visual Studio: Torizon OS is indeed compatible with Visual Studio through the Torizon IDE extension. This extension allows you to configure and develop applications for Torizon using Visual Studio. Make sure you have the latest version of the extension installed and that your development environment is correctly set up to work with Torizon.
OTA Updates and Pairing/Cloud: While pairing and cloud services facilitate OTA updates by managing devices and deployments, they are not strictly necessary. Torizon supports both remote and offline updates, allowing you to update devices in the field without cloud services if preferred. However, using the cloud can simplify the management of multiple devices.
Role of TorizonCore: TorizonCore is the base OS for Torizon, designed to support containerized applications and provide robust update mechanisms. It simplifies development by allowing you to focus on application development rather than OS maintenance. TorizonCore’s use of containers and OSTree/Aktualizr for updates makes it well-suited for both development and field updates, ensuring your devices remain secure and up-to-date.
I hope this helps clarify your questions. If you have any more inquiries, feel free to ask.
Best regards,
Toradex AI Assistant
Please, also check if these links can help you solve your problem:
At the easy install screen there is a choice of Torizon is easy pairing or TorizonCore with evaluation containers.
5) What are the downstream ramifications to the choice? E.g if I use the prebuilt TorizonCore, can I in the future easily use the cloud for image management and OTA updates to field devices or do I have to go back thru easy installer and load a whole new os image?
6) Can I use the Visual studio extension with either os image?
7) what are LTS options for both OS images
Can you confirm if the device shows as “online” on the Torizon Cloud side?
If not, the easiest way is to reset the board, which should open with a new code.
Well… Torizon OS is intended for an embedded system scenario.
So, by default, there is no UI interface with buttons and icons to click, like a desktop environment, as this creates an unnecessary overhead to the system.
The core idea is that you deploy your apps and, when needed, use the cloud to update them.
Have you found any problems so far?
Yes. If you want to send updates to your devices from the cloud, you first need to pair it to the cloud.
There is ways to do it at scale, you don’t need to manually insert the code all the time.
Thanks for your quick response.
I was able to pair my iMX8 in Torizon Cloud, at which time whatever GUI capabilities existed, disappeared! Within the Cloud a number of containers were suggested, I chose the QT/C++ which is obviously a GUI container. However the Torizon OS Easy Pairing I loaded is a headless system. Unfortunately Torizon Cloud does not filter container selections according to the OS capabilities.
Seems like I need either to add a GUI subsystem; as I understand is NOT for the VSCode extension, but rather Yocto recipes, which I think would be a monumental task or use an alternate Torizon pre-built image with GUI support.
The other prebuilt image I could have selected is TorizonCore with pre-built containers, would this have a GUI, or are all the containers non-UI in nature?
Sorry, it seems you are misunderstanding a lot of things here. I’m going to try and clarify some points.
The Torizon OS is a headless OS in a sense that by default it don’t have a “desktop environment”, with clickable icons, folders, menu. But you can easily add a GUI application to it.
It’s 2 separate things. The GUI from OS and from the app.
The “Easy Pairing” is an example of a GUI app. It is used to pair the device to the Torizon Cloud, but simultaneously show an example of a “running app”.
Thanks for the feedback; that’s true.
I’m actually working right now on adding a more descriptive info to the demos.
Just to be clear. You can run a GUI app in any Torizon OS version.
The problem here is that this QT demo was built for Torizon OS 6 and it may not be working for Torizon OS 7. You can run a GUI app on the newer OS. It’s a matter of adapting this demo for this version.
In Torizon, we use Weston as a “GUI subsystem”.
You don’t need to install it using Yocto. It’s just a container that you can bring up when needed.
In the VSCode templates, you can see various examples that uses weston, that is, that support a GUI.
Thanks Allan for quick response.
Forgive me for some of the repetitive questions; I have used Toradex, non-Torizon prebuilt images with GUI support for many years, and make menuconfig for kernel changes and am making a foray into Torizon.
I have a Colibri dev kit board with a Colibri iMX8 and am using the VGA video port. SSH works fine. So after pairing, when I mentioned loosing the GUI capabilities, what happened is the screen went black, which I didn’t expect to happen since pairing had already shown a gui. Is there a question of VGA on Colibri vs HDMI video that is perhaps used on another dev board or just installing a video container? Does make menuconfig work or as I have seen elsewhere a bit bake menuconfig alternate?
Thanks
John
Hi Allan,
As I mentioned, we’ve been using Toradex pre-compiled images with a basic GUI for several years and modified kernels using make menu config. We have a number of projects, some internal R&D and others in the field in the low dozens of units that are becoming difficult to upgrade. Since we are transitioning from iMX7d to iMX8 with larger memory capacity, I’m trying to evaluate if Torizon is a better approach. Our team members like using visual studio, therefore, it’s attractive for torizon development. It’s nice to have a GUI For development, though It’s not used in the field applications. So I’ve encountered a number of challenges when trying to evaluate:
had to repeatedly install the extension for visual studio; at one point, the explorer did have the project creation and multi container, creation buttons, but they have since now disappeared, The control shift P does allow a project creation with a variety of templates, though I do not see the gui manager container that I saw when using the Torizon cloud web app.
at one point during reinstalls After responding to a variety of prompts the Toradex installation scripts created a new WSL distribution called Torizon WSL 2 which is very confusing. So I deleted that distribution reverting to my legacy WSL2 and took care of all the dependencies as you can see in the previous Post. dependencies seem to be satisfied, however I still don’t have the Visual studio codeexplorer buttons to create projects.
2a) another thing I’ve noticed that dependencies in WSL such as docker are satisfied, but sometime between exiting visual studio code, and perhaps rebooting WSL, the docker demon and other docker dependencies are reported by the Toradex extension initialization as not being satisfied so I have to resatisfy The dependencies frequently. Not sure why it’s seemingly so unstable?
upon using control shift, P create a container for C projects, The files appear in the explorer, but when built seem to run locally in WSL and not on the target iMX8 which is recognized as being connected in the terminal logs
in toradex cloud, my imx8 is correctly recognized, but it does not read back the installed packages correctly. It also has a problem recognizing which OS image is installed and I’m using the easy pair version 7. However, in visual studio code in the left panel, it recognizes the packages I’ve installed. That was being just for the sake of testing QT.
So in general, it just seems like the visual studio code environment And the cloud are just not consistent and have their respective issues. I had hoped things would be more plug-And play and just work upon installation.
Can you give more details about the problems you had?
Are you getting any errors?
Do you have any screenshots?
The option to create a new project only appears when you open a new window, with no “open folder” File > New Window
This is the expected behaviour. The cloud only “read back” information that the module sends from fluent-bit. It can only keep track of the updates that you send later on, after pairing the device.
The visual studio code is directly connected to your device, so it can read information from it.
