Qt 5.2.1 Beaglebone Binaries

Overview

So, how did I create these binaries....well I thought it would be fun to see how long it would take the Beaglebone to compile Qt. Here is a brief description of my setup.

I powered the Beaglebone with a 5v power supply and booted a Debian rootfs using TFTP and NFS (a future post will explain how to configure this) so I could utilize the large HD of my Linux host. After compiling and installing Qt, the total root filesystem usage is around 3 Gb. The actual compile took about 21 hours, which includes compiling all examples and plugins.

Configuration

I created a simple shell script to modify the Qt source, with the Beaglebone configuration, and run the Qt configuration script:

#!/bin/sh




# Create beaglebone hard float configuration file

cd qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.2.1/qtbase/mkspecs/devices/

cp -r linux-beagleboard-g++ linux-beaglebone-g++

sed 's/softfp/hard/' <linux-beagleboard-g++/qmake.conf >linux-beaglebone-g++/qmake.conf





# Run configuration


cd ../../../

./configure -v -opensource -confirm-license -prefix /usr/local/qt-5.2 -no-largefile -no-accessibility -qt-zlib -no-gif -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -no-nis -no-cups -device linux-beaglebone-g++

This produced the following summary:

   Configure summary




Build type:    linux-g++ (arm, CPU features:)

Platform notes:




            - Also available for Linux: linux-kcc linux-icc linux-cxx

        

qmake vars .......... styles += mac fusion windows DEFINES += QT_NO_MTDEV QT_CFLAGS_DBUS = -I/usr/include/dbus-1.0 -I/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/dbus-1.0/include   QT_LIBS_DBUS = -ldbus-1   QT_CFLAGS_GLIB = -pthread -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/glib-2.0/include   QT_LIBS_GLIB = -pthread -lgthread-2.0 -lrt -lglib-2.0   QT_CFLAGS_PULSEAUDIO = -D_REENTRANT -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/glib-2.0/include   QT_LIBS_PULSEAUDIO = -lpulse-mainloop-glib -lpulse -lglib-2.0   DEFINES += QT_NO_LIBUDEV QMAKE_CFLAGS_XCB =   QMAKE_LIBS_XCB = -lxcb   QMAKE_CFLAGS_DIRECTFB = -D_REENTRANT -I/usr/include/directfb   QMAKE_LIBS_DIRECTFB = -ldirectfb -lfusion -ldirect -lpthread   sql-drivers =  sql-plugins =  sqlite qmake switches ......... 




Build options:

  Configuration .......... alsa audio-backend c++11 clock-gettime clock-monotonic compile_examples concurrent dbus directfb evdev eventfd full-config getaddrinfo getifaddrs glib iconv inotify ipv6ifname large-config linuxfb medium-config minimal-config mremap neon no-gif no-harfbuzz opengl openssl pcre png posix_fallocate precompile_header pulseaudio qpa qpa reduce_exports reduce_relocations release rpath shared small-config system-freetype xcb xcb-qt xkbcommon-qt xlib zlib 

  Build parts ............ libs tools examples

  Mode ................... release

  Using C++11 ............ yes

  Using PCH .............. yes

  Target compiler supports:

    iWMMXt/Neon .......... no/yes




Qt modules and options:

  Qt D-Bus ............... yes (loading dbus-1 at runtime)

  Qt Concurrent .......... yes

  Qt GUI ................. yes

  Qt Widgets ............. yes

  JavaScriptCore JIT ..... yes (To be decided by JavaScriptCore)

  QML debugging .......... yes

  Use system proxies ..... no




Support enabled for:

  Accessibility .......... no

  ALSA ................... yes

  CUPS ................... no

  FontConfig ............. no

  FreeType ............... system

  Iconv .................. yes

  ICU .................... no

  Image formats: 

    GIF .................. no

    JPEG ................. yes (plugin, using bundled copy)

    PNG .................. yes (in QtGui, using bundled copy)

  Glib ................... yes

  GTK theme .............. no

  Large File ............. no

  mtdev .................. no

  Networking: 

    getaddrinfo .......... yes

    getifaddrs ........... yes

    IPv6 ifname .......... yes

    OpenSSL .............. yes (loading libraries at run-time)

  NIS .................... no

  OpenGL ................. desktop

  OpenVG ................. no

  PCRE ................... yes (bundled copy)

  pkg-config ............. yes 

  PulseAudio ............. yes

  QPA backends: 

    DirectFB ............. yes

    EGLFS ................ no

    KMS .................. no

    LinuxFB .............. yes

    XCB .................. yes (bundled copy)

      MIT-SHM ............ yes

      Xcb-Xlib ........... no

      Xcursor ............ yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xfixes ............. yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xi ................. yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xi2 ................ no

      Xinerama ........... yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xrandr ............. yes (loaded at runtime)

      Xrender ............ no

      XKB ................ yes

      XShape ............. yes

      XSync .............. yes

      XVideo ............. yes

  Session management ..... yes

  SQL drivers: 

    DB2 .................. no

    InterBase ............ no

    MySQL ................ no

    OCI .................. no

    ODBC ................. no

    PostgreSQL ........... no

    SQLite 2 ............. no

    SQLite ............... yes (plugin, using bundled copy)

    TDS .................. no

  udev ................... no

  xkbcommon .............. yes (bundled copy)

  zlib ................... yes (bundled copy)




NOTE: libxkbcommon 0.2.0 (or higher) not found on the system, will use 

the bundled version from 3rd party directory.

NOTE: Qt is using double for qreal on this system. This is binary incompatible against Qt 5.1.

Configure with '-qreal float' to create a build that is binary compatible with 5.1.

If you've tried cross compiling Qt, from my other posts, you will notice a lot more modules are enabled in this build.

I've tested a few examples and they all work, but I have not tested everything (haven't been able to test touch screen stuff yet). The examples default to using X11, if you want to use the linuxfb, add '-platform linuxfb' to the command line options. For example:

> analogclock -platform linuxfb

Here are two versions of binaries, one that includes examples (78 Mb) and one that does not (36 Mb).

MD5SUM:
9395fc70f576e58b68df7d732a002abb  qt-5.2-no-examples.tgz
f698f038166c4b2f65cec40056e23db2  qt-5.2.tgz

Extract to /usr/local, as the tarball contains the qt-5.2 folder in it.

If you want to try your hand at compiling applications on the Beaglebone, these packages have a native qmake included. Don't forget to add /usr/local/qt-5.2/bin to your path.

Have fun!

Why Qt Development was stalled....

I finally finished my digital I/O cape! It only took about two and a half hours to hand solder all of the components. It is fully tested and ready to go.

It has an isolated DC to DC converter, 16 optically isolated digital inputs and 16 optically isolated digital outputs, a 4 wire RS-422 port, and an optically isolated 2 wire RS-485 port.

I have released the Eagle 6.5 project files, for my older v1.0 board (v2.0 is in the photo), on GitHub: https://github.com/compeoree/bb-dio-cape.

Now back to Qt 5.....