PYNQ-Z1 Framebuffer

Overview

This is a frame buffer driver module for PYNQ-Z1 board with the base overlay, which enables to use applications which supports kernel framebuffer device to render its graphical outputs like X Window System on PYNQ-Z1 board.

日本語版

Requirements

• A PYNQ-Z1 board or equivalent.

• PYNQ-Z1 prebuilt image released at Feb 2017 or later.

• An environment which can compile linux kernel for ARM.

  • PYNQ-Z1 board with prebuilt image also can run compile linux kernel by itself, though it takes very long time.

• Device tree compiler (dtc) command

  • If you are using Ubuntu, you can install this command by installing device-tree-compiler package

  sudo apt-get install device-tree-compiler
  

• A display which supports the resolutions listed below:

  • 640x480 @ 60Hz
  • 800x480 @ 60Hz
  • 800x600 @ 60Hz
  • 1280x720 @ 60Hz
  • 1280x1024 @ 60Hz
  • 1920x1080 @ 60Hz
  • Other display resolutions will be supported in future release.

Install

• If you want to use prebuilt binary of this framebuffer driver, download the prebuilt binary from here and begin from the procedure 7.

1. clone this repository into somewhere.

   git clone https://github.com/ciniml/pynqz1fb
   

2. Download Linux kernel source code from Xilinx Linux kernel source repository on GitHub.

   wget https://github.com/Xilinx/linux-xlnx/archive/xilinx-v2016.4-sdsoc.tar.gz
   tar zxf xilinx-v2016.4-sdsoc.tar.gz
   

3. Run make on the top directory of pynqz1fb working tree with kernel source path.

   cd pynqz1fb
   KERNEL_SRC_ROOT=`pwd`/../linux-xlnx-v2016.4-sdsoc make all -j8
   

4. After a few minutes, pynqz1fb.ko is generated in the pynqz1fb directory.

5. Modify device tree file pynqz1.dts if needed.

   • Some settings including screen width and height is stored in the device tree.
   • Modify width and height field for the resolution of your display device.
   • The default setting is for displays with 800x480 resolution, which is my HDMI display's resolution.

6. Compile modified device tree source (*.dts) to device tree binary (*.dtb) format.

   dtc -I dts -O dtb -o devicetree.dtb pynqz1.dts
   

7. Copy devicetree.dtb into the boot partition of your SD card.

   • Note that you should backup the original devicetree.dtb to somewhere.

8. Turn on your PYNQ-Z1 board and connect a HDMI display to its HDMI out port.

9. Copy pynqz1fb.ko to PYNQ-Z1 board via Jupiter notebook.

10. Open a terminal in the Jupyter notebook.

11. Move to the Jupyter notebook root directory.

    cd /home/xilinx/jupyter-notebook
    

12. Insert the kernel module with insmod command.

    insmod ./pynqz1fb.ko
    

13. Now you can see a prompt is shown in your display.

14. If you cannot see anything, please confirm that the parameters in device tree is correct or not.

    • Are width and height parameters correct?

License

GPL whose version is the same with the Linux kernel source because this driver is based on simplefb.c in the linux kernel source.