STM32-OS 24.04 LTS

Target	Ecosystem

This repository is about a minimal linux distro, based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. This linux distribution has the minimal setup for starting a system. Every package Ubuntu 24.04 LTS have, can be installed on STM32-OS.

Pre installed packages

busybox
ssh
apt
vnc
dpkg
nano
python
bzip2
gzip
etc...

How to use

First you need to clone two repos.

git clone https://github.com/danielmartensson/STM32-OS
git clone https://github.com/danielmartensson/STM32-Computer

Then you run this file. Enter super user password for root privileges. This will create a file callecd rootfs.ext4.

./create_stm32_os.sh

After that, go to this path and run STM32CubeProgrammer. Plug in your Micro USB cable (yes I know) into STM32-Computer and load the FlashLayout - STM32-OS.tsv inside STM32CubeProgrammer. Then you press Download and the eMMC will be flashed with the STM32-OS.

STM32-Computer/Firmware/STM32-Computer-Firmware/CA7/FIP_artifacts

Don't forget to change the BOOT1 pin to unconnected when you're flashing and then change BOOT1 pin to connected when you're booting the STM32-OS.

After the system has booted up, and you can either login(user: root. password: root) via UART or ssh, then it's important to run this command so you can take adventage of the total system space. This will resize the system to its true size, or else, you cannot even create a single file.

resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p7
e2fsck -f /dev/mmcblk0p6
df -h

Important packages

A minimal system need to have:

hdmi
ssh
net
vnc

So therefore, these must be installed, if they are not already installed.

apt-get install isc-dhcp-client net-tools drm-info libdrm2 libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-common libdrm-tests xorg xterm xserver-xorg-video-armsoc x11-xserver-utils xinit xserver-xorg-input-evdev weston seatd libinput-tools xcursor-themes libgl1-mesa-dri mesa-utils wayland-utils kmscon
sudo touch ~/.Xauthority

Starting the HDMI screen

The HDMI screen will be started default with a console login promt kmscon. To start the graphical user interface:

pkill kmscon; weston --use-pixman --idle-time=0

Starting VNC

This STM32-OS comes with a VNC server. To configure the VNC server.

openssl genrsa -out vnc.key 2048
openssl req -new -x509 -key vnc.key -out vnc.cert -days 365 -subj "/CN=localhost"

And start the VNC server with. This can be done through openssh.

weston --backend=vnc --vnc-tls-cert=/path/to/vnc.cert --vnc-tls-key=/path/to/vnc.key

Troubleshooting

Then you're are logged in with sudo chroot rootfs and trying to install something, then this might appears.

Problem: sudo: unable to allocate pty: No such device
Solution: mount none -t devpts /dev/pts

Problem:  /proc/ is not mounted. This is not a supported mode of operation. Please fix                                                                
your invocation environment to mount /proc/ and /sys/ properly. Proceeding anyway.                                                            
Your mileage may vary.

Solution: mount -t proc proc /proc

Too large files to commit

Here are files that are too large to commit:

rootfs/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libLLVM-17.so.1

FAQ

Question: Can I use this for STM32MP157 too?
- Answer: The installation of this linux distribution is meant to work for STM32-Computer, but the rootfs folder, which is the STM32-OS, can work for all types of armhf architectures. So the answer is yes, you can.
Question: STMicroelectronics have a linux distribution called OpenSTLinux. Why did you not use that instead?
- Answer: I find that Ubunutu's ecosystem of the apt packages are much richer compared to OpenSTLinux. Also there is more community support for Ubuntu compared to OpenSTLinux.
Question: I want to build on my kernel, can I use this repository to build on my kernel?
- Answer: No, if you want to build on your kernel, head over to STM32-Computer. I have separated the bootfs-work (kernel) and rootfs-work (STM32-OS).
Question: What's the difference between Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and STM32-OS 24.04 LTS?
- Answer: I'm keeping STM32-OS as thin as possible for minimal RAM usage.