Flashing a base image#

Once you downloaded an archive, please first unpack it into a location of your choice.

Registration

If you want to test SimpleCore™, SimpleSwitch™ or any of our packages from our SimpleCore™ incubator program, please register here and we will grant you access.

You will need…

a Computer
a suitable SDCard (except for QEMU)

Flashing base images (real hardware)#

Before you can proceed you need to flash the downloaded image to a SDCard.

The following ways are possible

we advise for Flash using Etcher or Flash using bmaptool

Booting up the board (real hardware)#

Once flashed

insert the SDCard into the carrier board SDCard slot
power up the board

Check the boot selection settings

Make sure to check that the set the Boot Selection pins are set to Carrier SD Card before booting up. Consult your base board manual for the exact settings

Flashing base images (QEMU)#

To enable a qemu based base image, please follow the Flashing base images (QEMU) guide.

Booting up (QEMU)#

Create a new virtual machine from the directory where the bundle is located. It can be started using

Grant user libvirt-qemu the right access permissions. Assuming you installed your VM at simpleswitch-vm, run

sudo setfacl -m u:libvirt-qemu:r-x simpleswitch-vm

unfortunately this setting is not permanent and needs to be repeated after every logout or reboot.

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virsh -c qemu:///system start simplecore-simpleswitch-os-image

virsh -c qemu:///system start simplecore-simpleswitch-os-weston-image

It can be stopped using

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virsh -c qemu:///system shutdown simplecore-simpleswitch-os-image

virsh -c qemu:///system shutdown simplecore-simpleswitch-os-weston-image

If a graphical interface is needed, it can be shown using

virt-viewer -c qemu:///system simplecore-simpleswitch-os-weston-image

Note

Those commands (start, stop, etc) apply to virtual machines and not to Yocto images. A prerequisite to run the commands above is to “flash the image” in QEMU. Instructions can be found in our Flashing base images (QEMU) section.

Stopping a QEMU instance#

To remove a QEMU image, e.g. in case on an update, run

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virsh -c qemu:///system destroy simplecore-simpleswitch-os-image

virsh -c qemu:///system destroy simplecore-simpleswitch-os-weston-image

Removing a QEMU image#

A stopped QEMU image can be removed by running

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graphical image

virsh -c qemu:///system undefine simplecore-simpleswitch-os-image

virsh -c qemu:///system undefine simplecore-simpleswitch-os-weston-image

Further information on QEMU images#

Further information about QEMU and virsh can be obtained by running

virsh -c help domain