How to Flash Image

Set Up Ubuntu Host PC

On the Ubuntu host PC, follow these steps to install tools and configure your host PC:

• Install genio-tool and its dependencies. This is used to flash Ubuntu images to the target board.

# Ubuntu 22.04
sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pip
pip3 install --upgrade pip
sudo apt install fastboot
pip3 install -U genio-tools

• Add two new udev rules and add your user account to the plugdev & dialout group:

cat << EOT | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/96-genio-board.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0e8d", ATTR{idProduct}=="201c", MODE="0660", $ GROUP="plugdev"
EOT

cat << EOT | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/72-aiot.rules
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0e8d", ATTR{idProduct}=="201c", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0e8d", ATTR{idProduct}=="0003", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0403", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
SUBSYSTEM=="gpio", MODE="0660", TAG+="uaccess"
EOT

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger
sudo usermod -a -G plugdev,dialout $USER
# completely logout then re-login, or just reboot
loginctl terminate-user $USER # *** desktop will be terminated ***
# sudo reboot

• check if 20(dialout) and 46(plugdev) are list in the effective group ID ...

id

• check if the genio-tools does work

genio-config

make sure every item's result is OK

  fastboot: OK
  udev rules: OK (md5: a3b2767b42ee01d7c62bf394400528ae)
  Serial device write access: OK

Get Image Ready

• Download the image and extract it first.

tar xvf ${IMAGE}.tgz

Connect the Target Board to the Host PC

• Confirm the power adaptor has been connected to the board.
• Use one Type-A to Type-A USB cable to connect the host PC and the target board (DOWNLOAD supported USB port)
• (optional) Use debug console to monitor flashing process
• Turn the target board power on

Flash Ubuntu Image to the Target Board

• First change directory(cd) to the image directory, and run genio-flash:

cd ${IMAGE}
genio-flash

The tool should have the following output:

Looking for MediaTek SoC matching USB device 0e8d:0003

The line Looking for MediaTek SoC matching USB device 0e8d:0003 shows that genio-flash tool is waiting for the board to be reset into download mode to start the flash programming procedure.

Follow these steps to enter download mode:

Press the DOWNLOAD button and hold it ...

Press and release the RESET button.

The tool should output the following messages:

Jumping to bootstrap at address 0x201000 in AArch64 mode
erasing mmc0
< waiting for any device >

Release the DOWNLOAD button after the tool outputs < waiting for any device >

The flash tool should continue with the following message, which shows the progress of erasing the onboard storage and writing image content to the storage:

Erasing 'mmc0'                                     (bootloader) request sz: 0x747c00000, real erase len: 0x0
OKAY [  1.031s]
Finished. Total time: 1.035s
erasing mmc0boot0
Erasing 'mmc0boot0'                                (bootloader) request sz: 0x400000, real erase len: 0x400000
OKAY [  0.005s]
Finished. Total time: 0.009s
erasing mmc0boot1
Erasing 'mmc0boot1'                                (bootloader) request sz: 0x400000, real erase len: 0x400000
OKAY [  0.004s]
Finished. Total time: 0.009s
flashing mmc0=ubuntu.img
Sending sparse 'mmc0' 1/17 (261730 KB)             OKAY [ 11.772s]
Writing 'mmc0'                                     OKAY [ 17.996s]
Sending sparse 'mmc0' 2/17 (262139 KB)             OKAY [ 12.311s]

Eventually, the flash tool would report the following logs once it finishes writing the onboard storage and reboot the board:

Sending sparse 'mmc0' 17/17 (220307 KB)            OKAY [  9.935s]
Writing 'mmc0'                                     OKAY [  8.762s]
Finished. Total time: 607.491s
flashing mmc0boot0=bl2.img
Sending 'mmc0boot0' (233 KB)                       OKAY [  0.012s]
Writing 'mmc0boot0'                                OKAY [  0.018s]
Finished. Total time: 0.078s
flashing mmc0boot1=u-boot-env.bin
Sending 'mmc0boot1' (4 KB)                         OKAY [  0.002s]
Writing 'mmc0boot1'                                OKAY [  0.006s]
Finished. Total time: 0.015s
flashing bootloaders=fip.bin
Sending 'bootloaders' (1784 KB)                    OKAY [  0.079s]
Writing 'bootloaders'                              OKAY [  0.071s]
Finished. Total time: 0.182s
flashing bootloaders_b=fip.bin
Sending 'bootloaders_b' (1784 KB)                  OKAY [  0.069s]
Writing 'bootloaders_b'                            OKAY [  0.071s]
Finished. Total time: 0.149s
flashing firmware=firmware.vfat
Sending 'firmware' (32768 KB)                      OKAY [  1.337s]
Writing 'firmware'                                 OKAY [  1.160s]
Finished. Total time: 2.858s
flashing firmware_b=firmware.vfat
Sending 'firmware_b' (32768 KB)                    OKAY [  1.338s]
Writing 'firmware_b'                               OKAY [  1.160s]
Finished. Total time: 2.530s
flashing bootassets=bootassets.vfat
Sending 'bootassets' (32768 KB)                    OKAY [  1.282s]
Finished. Total time: 2.721s
Rebooting                                          OKAY [  0.002s]
Finished. Total time: 0.052s