Writing Your Own UPM Module: Getting Started

Intel-IoT_LogoImage courtesy of Intel iot-devkit GitHub account

UPM (Useful Packages and Modules) is a high-level library that relies on MRAA to talk to hardware peripherals over GPIO, SPI, UART, etc. Both libraries were created by Intel and come packaged with the Galileo and Edison boards. MRAA has support for other single board computers, like the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone Black, according to the MRAA documentation.

MRAA is the low-level driver that controls the individual bits for the GPIO. UPM is a collection of libraries (modules) that provides the necessary software for various sensors, motor drivers, etc.

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Creating a Custom Linux Kernel for the Edison (release 2.1)

In this post, I will go over how to create a custom Linux image for the Intel Edison using the Yocto Project Edison source code release 2.1.

Intel Edison_and_Pi_Block

Apparently, it’s been almost exactly a year since I originally posted how to create a custom Linux kernel. Weird.

Well, since that time, I’ve had some people ask about updating that tutorial, as a few steps no longer apply and the whole thing is out of date. It seems that the Yocto Project also grows and changes over the months.

I created this tutorial with the help of the Yocto Project Getting Started Guide, the Intel Edison Board Support Package, and this thread on the Intel forums.

A few notes before we get started:

  • All of these steps are performed on a Linux host machine. I recommend Ubuntu (or another Debian distribution), as I use apt-get liberally.
  • You will need at least 50 GB of free hard drive space. The Yocto Project can be quite large.
  • The hard drive should be a Linux partition (e.g. Ext4). Trying to execute some of the scripts from an NTFS drive proved difficult.
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