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Version: 5.0

Loading Toradex Easy Installer

Introduction​

The goal of this article is to guide you to the process of loading the Toradex Easy Installer tool to the RAM of your System on Module.

Why do I have to (re)load the Toradex Easy Installer?​

As explained in the Toradex Easy Installer Overview, Tezi comes pre-installed in all new Toradex modules. It runs completely in memory so that the complete internal flash can be erased, (re)partitioned, formatted, or written.

You will need to load Tezi to your module again if you need to install a new operating system image and your module does not boot to Toradex Easy Installer by defaul. In other words, your system is already running a previously installed OS, for instance, Linux or Torizon OS instead. In this case, you must enter in recovery mode and load it in memory from a host computer, using the USB OTG approach or the external media approach.

Requirements​

USB OTG Approach​

  • Regular USB to micro USB or USB to USB-C cable
  • Carrier board that provides access to the USB OTG interface

External Media Approach​

  • A FAT formatted (e.g. FAT-32) USB Stick or SD Card.
  • Carrier board with either an SD Card or USB host.
  • Access to serial port debug UART (for booting via USB).
To Avoid
  • Avoid using a USB Hub between the PC and the USB OTG port.
  • Avoid using Virtual Machines.

1. Setup Cables​

Connect all the cables to your Carrier Board, as demonstrated on the Quickstart Guide for your Carrier Board. Don't forget to connect the display/monitor to the carrier board before power on. HDMI hotplug is not supported.

If don't have a display/monitor available, you can access the user interface remotely over the network using VNC.

Setup cables for your Carrier Board following the QuickStart Guide

2. Download Tezi​

Download a Toradex Easy Installer image from Download Toradex Easy Installer.

3. Loading Tezi​

3.1 Loading through the USB OTG interface​

3.1.1 Put your SoM in Recovery Mode​

Don't expect any menu on the Display/Monitor at this moment. The Tezi GUI will only show up after the software be loaded on the next step.

Select your computer on module from the tabs below:

Apalis iMX8​

caution

Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)

Connect the Module to your Development PC​

  • Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine

    • Apalis Evaluation Board

      Connect X49 or X50 (USBO1_CL/USBO1)

    • Ixora Carrier Board

      Connect to X9 on the underside of the Carrier Board. Be sure to remove JP2 in order to be able to use X9 in OTG Client mode. Be sure nothing is plugged into the lower connector of X8.

Enter recovery mode​
caution

Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.

Using hardware mechanism​
Ixora Carrier Board

  • Make sure the board is turned off.

  • Connect the 2 pads as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.

Recovery mode pads Apalis iMX8 on Ixora

  • Power on the board and keep the pads connected for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the pads.
Other boards

  • Make sure the board is turned off.

  • Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.

Recovery mode pads Apalis iMX8

  • Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on.
tip

To check if your Computer on Module has entered recovery mode correctly, you can compare the output of lsusb on your computer before and after entering recovery mode. A new entry will be present if the procedure has been successful.

3.1.2 Run the Recovery Mode Script​

Unzip the Toradex Easy Installer package you downloaded at the beginning of the article, change to this directory, and use one of the following scripts on the host machine to load and execute the tool through USB OTG interface:

$ cd <unzipped directory>
$ ./recovery-linux.sh
info

During the recovery process, the module connected via USB may re-enumerate several times.

If downloading gets stuck or fails with an error, try starting over from the recovery mode article.

Example of output after successful execution of the recovery script

3.2 Loading from External Media (SD Card/USB Stick)​

This section describes an alternative method, not officially supported by Toradex, as we technically cannot guarantee that this works all the time and also across different versions. This method relies on Distro Boot, which is configured to boot in the following order on our BSP:

  1. SD Card
  2. internal eMMC
  3. USB Stick
(Disclaimer) Why using an external media?

Why would you use an unsupported method, though? Because you are in a situation that does not meet the requirements above or, in other words:

  • You have a carrier board that does not allow you to enter recovery mode, or the product enclosing makes it inviable on the field.
  • Your product does not allow one to easily use a desktop PC to load Toradex Easy Installer into the SoM on the field.

3.2.1 Prepare the External Media​

Unzip Easy Installer into the root directory of the external media (USB stick or SD Card). You will see the following contents, or similar:

$ tree
.
├── boot-tezi.scr
├── image.json
├── imx-boot
├── imx-boot-v10b
├── overlays.txt
├── recovery
│   ├── uuu
│   ├── uuu.auto
│   ├── uuu.auto-v10b
│   └── uuu.exe
├── recovery-linux.sh
├── recovery-windows.bat
├── tezi.itb
├── tezi.png
├── u-boot.bin
└── wrapup.sh

Rename the file boot-tezi.scr to boot.scr. This is the name used by the U-Boot bootloader in our BSP.

3.2.2 Boot Easy Installer​

Booting Easy Installer with an image based on our BSP Layers and Reference Images for Yocto Project should work, but keep in mind to match the versions of Tezi and the BSP image. If you mismatch the versions things may still work, but the likelihood is lower.

You might need to adapt the boot.scr to make things work. For this, refer to Distro Boot or ask for help from our developers in the Toradex Community.

And as soon as you have boot.scr in place you can boot Tezi:

  • From the SD Card:

    1. Insert the external media on the carrier board.
    2. power on the carrier board.

  • From the USB Stick:

    1. Set up the access to the U-Boot console through the serial port debug UART.
    2. Insert the USB stick on the carrier board.
    3. Power on the carrier board.
    4. Stop U-Boot from booting by pressing any key on your keyboard.
    5. Run the command run bootcmd_usb0. It will skip trying to boot from the SD Card and internal eMMC flash, and try to boot directly from the USB.

4. Using Toradex Easy Installer​

After loading the Toradex Easy Installer into the module's RAM memory, the Tezi GUI will show up in your Display/Monitor.

info

This process does not write the Toradex Easy Installer to flash. You will have to redo these steps if you power off your module.

Toradex Easy Installer screen

You are ready to install images using the tool. See the Toradex Easy Installer article for instructions on how to proceed.



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