Linux

The Mecha Comet Linux kernel is based on the NXP i.MX 8M Plus SDK. This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough for developers to manually cross-compile and package the kernel from source for custom deployments.

Manual Build Guide

This section covers how to build the kernel on a Linux host (e.g., Ubuntu) for the Mecha Comet (ARM64).

1. Set Up Cross-Compilation

Install the ARM64 toolchain and set up the necessary environment variables.

# Install the toolchain
sudo apt install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu

# Set target architecture and cross-compiler prefix
export ARCH=arm64
export CROSS_COMPILE=aarch64-linux-gnu-

2. Prepare the Source Tree

Clone the official kernel repository and include the required WiFi driver.

# Clone the repository (imx/lf-6.12.20 is the default branch)
git clone https://github.com/mecha-org/linux
cd linux

# Add the mwifiex (WiFi module) driver
mkdir -p drivers/staging
git clone https://github.com/nxp-imx/mwifiex drivers/staging/mwifiex

3. Build the Kernel

Apply the default configuration for the Mecha Comet and start the compilation.

# Use the default configuration for Comet
make mecha_v8_defconfig

# (Optional) Customize the configuration
make menuconfig

# Build the kernel image and modules
make -j$(nproc)

4. Create Packages

To generate installable packages for Mecha's distribution, you can build both RPM and DEB packages.

For RPM:

make KBUILD_IMAGE=arch/arm64/boot/Image binrpm-pkg -j$(nproc)

For Debian:

make KBUILD_IMAGE=arch/arm64/boot/Image bindeb-pkg -j$(nproc)

The resulting packages will be located in the rpmbuild/RPMS/ or the parent directory of the kernel source.