Recommendations for good ARM board to work on Genode Project

fdelizy · September 30, 2025, 2:30pm

Hi,

after a (very long) time away from Genode (sorry Norman T_T) I am finally returning to my projects to work on Genode for my PhD, and I am embarking another student in the journey.

We are looking at a capable board to work on, running IMX8M, some NPU for AI workloads and a few goodies like an HDMI output, network etc to get confortable.

Unless we find better recommendations, we would likely go with tthe Verdin iMX8M Plus board:

Verdin iMX8M Plus | Toradex Developer Center
Dahlia Carrier Board | Toradex Developer Center .

I see the processor itself is supported, but there would be a few drivers missing (at a glance, the could be a challenge).

Would you have a good recommendation for us to work on?

Requirements:

ARM with Trustzone support (armv8 prefered)
Integrated Network (Ethernet preferred, Wifi is a plus)
Integrated or on-board NPU / GPU
Graphics (we’d like to support SculptOS ^^;)
USB, debug, (JTAG or SWD would really help)
PCI/miniPCI bus for experimenting

If you have recommendations, let us know if you forsee any big blocker on the chosen board, I am also interested to learn about it.

Thanks a lot!

trimpim · October 1, 2025, 8:50am

Hi fdelizy

Integrated Network (Ethernet preferred, Wifi is a plus)

Both integrated Ethernet ports of the SOC are supported (FEC / STMMAC). As far as I can see it you would only have to extract the correct DTB from the BSP of Thoradex, which usually are really good.

For WiFi the question comes down to the type of Module used and if it is already supported by the current driver. If it is already supported, it boils down to enable USB-host support.

USB

The USB-host driver of the SOC also is supported, for this you only need to extract the DTB from the BSP.

To extract the DTB for a driver you can use the tool/dts/extract script.

There is a series of posts from Norman on https://genodians.org/ about enabling Genode on the Pinephone which explains enabling new boards in great detail.

There is also https://genode.org/documentation/genode-platforms-23-05.pdf that gives further insights on enabling new boards / SOCs.

Hope this helps.

fdelizy · October 1, 2025, 5:37pm

Thanks Pirmin, it’s been too long since we talked (sorry for kinda disappearing for a while too ^^;).

Thanks ffor your answer, that doesn’t sound too bad I guess, but will likely be a 2~3 month effort to bring up Scuplt on this, then publish a corresponding repo.

Would you have any other hardware platform suggestion that would require less porting maybe?

Since this is for research purpose, we are quite flexible at the moment

nfeske · October 2, 2025, 8:17am

Welcome back @fdelizy!

your estimation of 1-2 months for enabling another board using the same i.MX8 family is probably right. But I’d argue such an exercise might be quite valuable to get a solid grip on Genode’s low-level code as well as the specific hardware. I think sooner or later, expertise in these topics will be needed anyway. So why not kick off you line of research with it? Let the Platforms book be your guide.

Anyway, regarding i.XM8-based hardware supported by Sculpt OS, we have enabled an armStone board earlier this year. This specific board is supported in the master branch. We presented Sculpt OS on this board at this year’s Embedded World. Here is how it looked like:

Note that this was a one-off use of this board. We don’t use it regularly and it not integrated in our CI. However, if you want to get something up and running on a purchasable i.MX8 board, it is probably the path of least effort.

trimpim · October 2, 2025, 11:19am

@fdelizy nice to hear from you again.

We use two boards currently:

imx8mp_iot_gate from CompuLab which is in the official genode-imx repository
imx8mp_phyboard_pollux which we maintain internally (SoM / carrier board combo)

We do not use the integrated GPU/NPU as we use them as IoT gateways with no GUI.

fdelizy · October 6, 2025, 2:20pm

Thanks for all your suggestions! we will check with our lab if those boards can be used cross team too.

I understand the armStone board isn’t maintained in the CI, so even it works now, there is no guarantee it will continue to be maintained in the future. (At least though, it would be a good starting point, even if we want to port Genode+Sculpt to another platform).

On the side-notes, there might be an avenue to publish something by doing the porting (and becoming the maintainer) of that board. Academics are still very paper-publishing driven so we need to take this into consideration.

will report back!

fdelizy · October 6, 2025, 4:35pm

for the record, we were also looking at iMX95 Toradex Verdin Module (which includes other interesting cores like the M33) but I couldn’t find traces of work on the iMX9*… maybe I missed something?

Other precision, we will likely base our effort of seL4, I see that seL4 has something started for iMX93 and supports iMX8M+ as well … hopefully, this should not be too bad

fdelizy · February 18, 2026, 9:30am

Hi Norman,

just a quick update, after pushing for the last few months we finally got the 3 boards (purchasing anything through academics take ages )

I’ll start looking at the armstone, I understand it’s not in your CI but you made it work at some point.

I am interested to know what tag/version did you test?

For the record, we will start with the armStone, but target to enable the Toradex iMX8 & iMX9 later

skalk · February 23, 2026, 10:37am

Hi @fdelizy,

I’m not 100% sure what you mean when asking:

But if you mean what exact hardware revision we were using (?), well then here is the output from u-boot starting on our test-board:

U-Boot SPL 2021.04-nboot-fsimx8mp-2023.09 (Sep 01 2023 - 09:16:24 +0200)
BOARD-ID: armStoneMX8MP-FERT4.100
U-Boot 2021.04-F+S-fsimx8mp-Y2023.09 (Aug 31 2023 - 12:56:23 +0000) for F&S
CPU:   i.MX8MP[8] rev1.1, 1600 MHz (running at 1200 MHz)
CPU:   Industrial temperature grade (-40C to 105C)
Reset: POR
Model: armStoneMX8MP
Board: armStoneMX8MP Rev 1.00 (2x LAN, WLAN, eMMC, 1x DRAM)
DRAM:  2 GiB

fdelizy · February 23, 2026, 2:10pm

No, I meant what software version (sculpt release or genode got repo hash) you tested

I am in the process of building it, so far I have a booting init and a few components and I am now wresting the build to include the depots in the image ^^;

(And about 45% of the platform book read )

… Learning curve in progress ^^;

skalk · February 23, 2026, 2:26pm

We used it once as a demostrator at Embedded World 2025 last year. Please have a look here for the main repository:
GitHub - skalk/genode at sculpt-24.10.3-embedded-world
And here for the imx repository:
GitHub - skalk/genode-imx at sculpt-24.10.3-embedded_world_2025-armstone
But in theory it should still be possible to compile and run the latest Sculpt version (25.04), because the drivers did not change.

fdelizy · February 23, 2026, 3:57pm

Thanks!

I’ll look at the repo’s tag, and try to build from there

(still loading the learning curve, but this is getting quite exciting )

fdelizy · April 7, 2026, 1:19pm

So, I am happy to report that I was able to make work SculptOS Genode 26.02-36 (with a few minor patches to build on my workstation:

Starting kernel …

kernel initialized
Genode 26.02-36-ge686d3f7f1 
1494 MiB RAM and 64536 caps assigned to init
[init] Warning: runtime: configured RAM exceeds available RAM, proceed with 1056139712
[init → runtime] parent provides
[init → runtime]   service “ROM”
[init → runtime]   service “PD”
[init → runtime]   service “RM”
[init → runtime]   service “CPU”
[init → runtime]   service “LOG”
[init → runtime]   service “IO_MEM”
[init → runtime]   service “IO_PORT”
[init → runtime]   service “IRQ”
[init → runtime]   service “Gui”
[init → runtime]   service “Timer”
[init → runtime]   service “Block”
[init → runtime]   service “Report”
[init → runtime]   service “Platform”
[init → drivers → platform]   0x1000000 .. 0x14ffffff: linker area
[init → drivers → platform]   0x40000000 .. 0x4fffffff: stack area
[init → runtime] monitor ready
[init → drivers → platform]   0x30000 .. 0x119fff: ld.lib.so
[init → runtime] parent provides
[init → runtime]   service “VM”
[init → runtime]   service “Usb”
[init → runtime]   service “File_system”
[init → runtime]   service “Rtc”
[init → runtime]   service “TRACE”
[init → runtime]   service “Event”
[init → runtime]   service “Capture”
[init → runtime]   service “Gpu”
[init → runtime]   service “Pin_state”
[init → runtime]   service “Pin_control”
[init → runtime]   service “I2c”
[init → runtime]   service “Terminal”
[init → runtime] child “fb”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  16136K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  216
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: fb
[init → runtime]   priority:   2
[init → runtime] child “usb”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  16136K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  166
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: usb
[init → runtime]   priority:   2
[init → runtime]   provides service Usb
[init → runtime] child “mmc”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  16136K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  466
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: mmc
[init → runtime]   priority:   3
[init → runtime]   provides service Block
[init → runtime] child “runtime_view”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  53000K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  296
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: menu_view
[init → runtime]   priority:   2
[init → runtime] child “ram_fs”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  776K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  266
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: vfs
[init → runtime]   priority:   2
[init → runtime]   provides service File_system
[init → runtime → mmc] SLUB: HWalign=128, Order=0-1, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[init → runtime → mmc] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
[init → runtime → mmc] clocksource: dde_counter: mask: 0xffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x1d854df40, max_idle_ns: 3526361616960 ns
[init → runtime → mmc] sched_clock: 64 bits at 1000kHz, resolution 1000ns, wraps every 2199023255500ns
[init → runtime → mmc] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 7645041785100000 ns
[init → runtime → mmc] platform soc@0: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/efuse@30350000/unique-id@8
[init → runtime → mmc] platform 30330000.pinctrl: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/pinctrl@30330000/imx8mp-armstonemx8mp/hoggrp
[init → runtime → mmc] platform 30350000.efuse: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/clock-controller@30380000
[init → runtime → mmc] platform 30350000.efuse: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/clock-controller@30380000
[init → runtime → mmc] clocksource: Switched to clocksource dde_counter
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci-pltfm: SDHCI platform and OF driver helper
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci-esdhc-imx 30b40000.mmc: Got WP GPIO
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci-esdhc-imx 30b60000.mmc: Got CD GPIO
[init → runtime → mmc] sdhci-esdhc-imx 30b60000.mmc: Got WP GPIO
[init → runtime → mmc] mmc0: SDHCI controller on 30b40000.mmc [30b40000.mmc] using ADMA
[init → runtime → mmc] mmc1: SDHCI controller on 30b60000.mmc [30b60000.mmc] using ADMA
[init → runtime] child “ram_fs” announces service “File_system”
[init → runtime → fb] — i.MX 8MQ framebuffer driver started —
[init → runtime] child “usb” announces service “Usb”
[init → runtime → mmc] mmc0: new HS400 Enhanced strobe MMC card at address 0001
[init → runtime → fb] OF: fdt: No chosen node found, continuing without
[init → runtime → usb] SLUB: HWalign=128, Order=0-1, MinObjects=0, CPUs=1, Nodes=1
[init → runtime → fb] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
[init → runtime → fb] clocksource: dde_counter: mask: 0xffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x1d854df40, max_idle_ns: 3526361616960 ns
[init → runtime → usb] NR_IRQS: 64, nr_irqs: 64, preallocated irqs: 0
[init → runtime → fb] sched_clock: 64 bits at 1000kHz, resolution 1000ns, wraps every 2199023255500ns
[init → runtime → usb] clocksource: dde_counter: mask: 0xffffffffffffff max_cycles: 0x1d854df40, max_idle_ns: 3526361616960 ns
[init → runtime → usb] sched_clock: 64 bits at 1000kHz, resolution 1000ns, wraps every 2199023255500ns
[init → runtime → usb] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 7645041785100000 ns
[init → runtime → usb] platform soc@0: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/efuse@30350000/unique-id@8
[init → runtime → usb] platform 30350000.efuse: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/clock-controller@30380000
[init → runtime → usb] platform 30350000.efuse: Fixed dependency cycle(s) with /soc@0/bus@30000000/clock-controller@30380000
[init → runtime → usb] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
[init → runtime → usb] usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
[init → runtime → usb] usbcore: registered new device driver usb
[init → runtime → usb] clocksource: Switched to clocksource dde_counter
[init → runtime → usb] usbcore: registered new interface driver genode
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0: mmc0:0001 8GTF4R 7.28 GiB
[init → runtime] child “mmc” announces service “Block”
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0boot0: mmc0:0001 8GTF4R 4.00 MiB
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0boot0: treat read-only device as writeable
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0boot1: mmc0:0001 8GTF4R 4.00 MiB
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0boot1: treat read-only device as writeable
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk0rpmb: mmc0:0001 8GTF4R 512 KiB, chardev (0:0)
[init → runtime → mmc] mmc1: host does not support reading read-only switch, assuming write-enable
[init → runtime] child “mmc-mmcblk0.part”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  7944K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  66
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: part_block
[init → runtime]   priority:   3
[init → runtime]   provides service Block
[init → runtime → mmc] mmc1: new high speed SDHC card at address 0002
[init → runtime → mmc] mmcblk1: mmc1:0002 00000 7.32 GiB
[init → runtime → mmc-mmcblk0.part] MBR Partition 1: LBA 16384 (180224 blocks) type: c
[init → runtime → mmc-mmcblk0.part] MBR Partition 2: LBA 196608 (1293202 blocks) type: 83
[init → runtime] child “mmc-mmcblk1.part”
[init → runtime]   RAM quota:  7944K
[init → runtime]   cap quota:  66
[init → runtime]   ELF binary: part_block
[init → runtime]   priority:   3
[init → runtime]   provides service Block
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: hcc params 0x0220fe65 hci version 0x110 quirks 0x0000008000000010
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: irq 3, io mem 0x38100000
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 2
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.0.auto: Host supports USB 3.0 SuperSpeed
[init → runtime → mmc-mmcblk1.part] GPT Partition 1: LBA 8192 (1598896 blocks) type: ‘0fc63daf-8483-4772-8e79-3d69d8477de4’ name: ‘GENODE’
[init → runtime] child “mmc-mmcblk1.part” announces service “Block”
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 6.06
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb1: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb1: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb1: Manufacturer:   xhci-hcd
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb1: SerialNumber: xhci-hcd.0.auto
[init → runtime → usb] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[init → runtime → usb] hub 1-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: We don’t know the algorithms for LPM for this host, disabling LPM.
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0003, bcdDevice= 6.06
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: Manufacturer:   xhci-hcd
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb2: SerialNumber: xhci-hcd.0.auto
[init → runtime → usb] hub 2-0:1.0: USB hub found
[init → runtime → usb] hub 2-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 3
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: hcc params 0x0220fe65 hci version 0x110 quirks 0x0000008000000010
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: irq 4, io mem 0x38200000
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 4
[init → runtime → usb] xhci-hcd xhci-hcd.1.auto: Host supports USB 3.0 SuperSpeed
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb3: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0002, bcdDevice= 6.06
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb3: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb3: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb3: Manufacturer:   xhci-hcd
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb3: SerialNumber: xhci-hcd.1.auto
[init → runtime → usb] hub 3-0:1.0: USB hub found
[init → runtime → usb] hub 3-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: We don’t know the algorithms for LPM for this host, disabling LPM.
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0003, bcdDevice= 6.06
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: New USB device strings: Mfr=3, Product=2, SerialNumber=1
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: Product: xHCI Host Controller
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: Manufacturer:   xhci-hcd
[init → runtime → usb] usb usb4: SerialNumber: xhci-hcd.1.auto
[init → runtime → usb] hub 4-0:1.0: USB hub found
[init → runtime → usb] hub 4-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[init → runtime → fb] clocksource: jiffies: mask: 0xffffffff max_cycles: 0xffffffff, max_idle_ns: 7645041785100000 ns
[init → runtime → fb] platform 32fd8000.hdmi: Fixing up cyclic dependency with 32fc6000.lcd-controller
[init → runtime → fb] clocksource: Switched to clocksource dde_counter
[init → runtime → fb] Error: Driver ‘imx8mp-ccm’ is already registered, aborting…
[init → runtime → fb] Error: memory-mapped I/O resource 0x32ec0000 (size=0x10000) unavailable
[init → runtime → fb] Error: Enable power domain hdmimix
[init → runtime → usb] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 2 using xhci-hcd
[init → runtime → fb] ++++ ++++ 32fc6000.lcd-controller __pm_runtime_resume + ++ ++
[init → runtime → fb] Error: Enable power domain hdmi
[init → drivers → platform] Warning: power domain hdmi is unknown
[init → runtime → fb] dwhdmi-imx 32fd8000.hdmi: Detected HDMI TX controller v2.13a with HDCP (samsung_dw_hdmi_phy2)
[init → runtime → fb] dwhdmi-imx 32fd8000.hdmi: registered DesignWare HDMI I2C bus driver
[init → runtime → usb] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0424, idProduct=2514, bcdDevice= b.b3
[init → runtime → usb] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=0, SerialNumber=0
[init → runtime → fb] imx-drm display-subsystem: bound imx-lcdifv3-crtc.0 (ops 0x0000000001126470)
[init → runtime → fb] imx-drm display-subsystem: bound 32fd8000.hdmi (ops 0x0000000001125ad0)
[init → runtime → fb] [drm] Initialized imx-drm 1.0.0 20120507 for display-subsystem on minor 0
[init → runtime → usb] hub 1-1:1.0: USB hub found
[init → runtime → usb] hub 1-1:1.0: 4 ports detected
[init → runtime → fb] Unable to create device for framebuffer 0; errno = -19
[init → runtime] Warning: fb: RAM upgrade of Capture failed
[init → runtime] child “fb” requests resources: ram_quota=8100K
[init → runtime → fb] — i.MX 8MQ framebuffer driver screen 0 initialized —
[init → runtime → fb] imx-drm display-subsystem: [drm] fb0: imx-drmdrmfb frame buffer device

The main struggle was to fight against uboot limited buffer size, but the solution is to avoid bootm directly, and break it into

bootm start <addr>
bootm prep
bootm go

Karin (@Mei on this forum) is working with me on next step, Toradex Verdin imx8mp