Uboot flash screen

Technical Support
, ,
1

Hi Folks,

i am following the tutorial Splash Screen on U-Boot | Toradex Developer Center. but the command mentioned bmp display is not found on u-boot. i am using scarthgap u-boot-toradex_2024.07 version. Thank you

2

Hi, I’m the Toradex AI Assistant.

I might make mistakes. Our support team will step in if needed. If I answered your question, please tick the “Solution” checkbox. For follow-up questions to me, please use @ToradexAI in your post.

Did you like my answer? :+1: :-1:

Hello,

Thank you for your question! The bmp display command in U-Boot is used to show BMP images (such as a splash screen), but its availability depends on certain U-Boot configuration options.

For the bmp display command to work, you must ensure the following in your U-Boot configuration:

  1. Enable Video Support in U-Boot
    By default, the video stack is disabled in U-Boot for BSP 5.0 and later, including recent Scarthgap releases. You need to manually enable it by adding the following line to your module’s defconfig:

    CONFIG_DM_VIDEO=y

    More info here

  2. Enable BMP Command Support
    You also need to enable the BMP command by adding:

    CONFIG_CMD_BMP=y

    Related community discussion

  3. Note on i.MX8-based Modules
    If you are using an i.MX8-based module, U-Boot splash screen video support (including bmp display) is not available out of the box. The mainline U-Boot currently does not support video displays for iMX8 SoCs.
    More details in this post

If you are working with BSP 6 or later and want a kernel-level splash screen, note that direct kernel splash support has been dropped. For modern systems, Toradex recommends using Plymouth for splash screens:

Please let me know which module you are using so I can provide further tailored assistance.

Best regards,
Toradex AI Assistant.

3

Hi @ToradexAI

i am using apalis-imx6. Can plymouth be used for uboot splash screen ?

Thank you

4

Thanks for your response.

Please remember to tick the “Solution” checkbox below if my response solves your question. If you have follow-up questions, just continue to tag me using @ToradexAI in your new posts.

Did you like my answer? :+1: :-1:

Hello,

Thank you for providing your module details.

Plymouth cannot be used for U-Boot splash screens. These two use completely different mechanisms and operate at different points in the boot process:

If you want to display a splash image at both the U-Boot and Linux boot stages, you must configure them separately. You cannot use Plymouth to display a splash image during the U-Boot stage on your Apalis iMX6.

To summarize:

If you need, I can guide you through either process step-by-step.

Best regards,
Toradex AI Assistant

5

Dear @farooq,

Since BSP5 the splash screen in U-boot is no longer supported. u-boot-toradex.git - U-Boot bootloader for Apalis and Colibri modules
Should you still require this, you will have to revert this change and also activate the support for bmp: CONFIG_CMD_BMP=y
There is an older article on it over here: Splash Screen on U-Boot | Toradex Developer Center
You would likely also have to create a new entry in the device tree for the display. In the past we have seen customers trying this for the Apalis iMX8QM as well, and this requires quite some extensive work. A possible approach for the Apalis iMX6 could look as follows (you might just have to use parallel RGB instead of LVDS) arm: dts: fsl-imx8qm-apalis: add a 1920x1080 LVDS display · embear-engineering/u-boot@2f3dfbe · GitHub

Best regards,
Collin