HCL:HoneyComb LX2K

HoneyComb LX2K

The HoneyComb and ClearFog CX are mini-ITX base boards for CEX7 LX2160 COM Express module based on NXP Layerscape LX2160A (16 Cortex A72) Arm processor.

HoneyComb is a ClearFog CX board without QSFP port.
HoneyComb documentation, including schematics, is available on https://developer.solid-run.com/products/honeycomb-lx2k/

16 ARM Cortex-A72 cores
2x DDR4 SO-DIMM 64 bits dual-channel slots (up to 64GB, 2x 32G)
Up to 100GbE (4 x SFP+)
Full virtualization support
M.2 2240/2280 (PCIe)
MicroSD
eMMC (64GB by default)
4x SATA (gen III)
4x SFP+ ports (2×2 cage – 10GbE each)
1x 1GbE copper (RJ45)
1x PCIe x8 Gen 3.0, open slot (can support x16)
3x USB 3.0
3x USB 2.0
1x QSFP port (40Gbps/4x10Gbps) (ClearFog CX only)

Standard UEFI boot environment (Coming soon, check: https://developer.solid-run.com/knowledge-base/lx2160a-cex7-uefi-and-sbsa-status/)

Installing

Firmware

You can use either UEFI firmware (preferred) or U-Boot to boot the boards from uSD card (or eMMC).

EDK2 UEFI

You can use the UEFI firmware, by:

using a pre-built image from: https://images.solid-run.com/LX2k/lx2160a_uefi (choose the right file to boot from SD or SPI flash, and for the right DDR speed)
building it manually from https://github.com/SolidRun/lx2160a_uefi and edit header to set required options, such as DDR_SPEED, then, run:

INITIALIZE=1 ./runme.sh
./runme.sh

Then, you can flash your uSD card with the UEFI image images/lx2160acex7_*.img.

Finally, please use the EFI installation method from Installing openSUSE ARM for AArch64 EFI based systems.

U-Boot

The easiest way to get u-boot is to flash the uSD card with the image provided by Solid-Run (including u-boot) at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AGdWMSh9lLEYpUeX2dAinQTjzvvi5pMn/view?usp=sharing which contains some firmware and U-Boot.
Boot order from U-Boot is: usb0, mmc0 (SD card), scsi0 (sata), nvme0

Then, please use the EFI image from Installing openSUSE ARM for AArch64 EFI based systems and copy it to USB or SATA storage.

With U-Boot, you will need to provide a DTB as U-Boot does not provide it. Some DTS are available at http://git.armlinux.org.uk/cgit/linux-arm.git/tree/arch/arm64/boot/dts/freescale?h=cex7

git clone git://git.armlinux.org.uk/linux-arm.git --branch=cex7 --depth=1
pushd linux-arm
make defconfig
make freescale/fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb
# DTB available at arch/arm64/boot/dts/freescale/fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb
popd

Copy the dtb to boot partition and add the following line for grub menu:

 devicetree /fsl-lx2160a-honeycomb.dtb

and start with ctrl-x.

Known issues

On-board Ethernet is broken but a patch is being worked on upstream, so you may need to use an USB-to-Ethernet adapter.
PCIe Gen4 driver for NXP Layerscape SoCs is merged upstream since kernel 5.7-rc1 (https://patchwork.kernel.org/cover/11379765/), so Tumbleweed supports it since kernel 5.7, and Leap 15.x and SLE15-SPx have patches to support it.
uSD read/write line is broken on early hardware revision, so uSD is read-only from the running machine.
There is a "USB to STM32" port for remote management, but there is no image to flash the STM32 so far. This is expected to be released for the end of 2020.
LX2160A-CEX7 errata list
HoneyComb and ClearFog CX errata list