Build SOF from scratch

You may boot and test Sound Open Firmware on a target machine or VM. Current target Intel platforms include: Bay Trail, Cherry Trail, Haswell, Broadwell, Apollo Lake, Cannon Lake, Ice Lake and Jasper Lake.

Support also exists for NXP i.MX8/i.MX8X/i.MX8M platforms.

Build SOF

The following steps describe how to install the SOF development environment on Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, and 18.10. They should work on 19.04, 19.10 and other Linux distributions with minor or no modifications.

Note

$SOF_WORKSPACE environment variable should point to the directory you wish to store all sof work in.

The code examples assume $SOF_WORKSPACE as the top-level working directory. Clone all git repositories at the same directory level because some default configuration files refer to other clones using relative locations like ../sof/.

Step 0 Set up the workspace directory

SOF_WORKSPACE=~/work/sof
mkdir "$SOF_WORKSPACE"

Step 1 Set up build environment

Install packaged dependencies

  • For Ubuntu 18.10:

    sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-dev libsdl1.2-dev libspice-protocol-dev \
   libspice-server-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusbredirhost-dev libtool-bin \
   acpica-tools valgrind texinfo virt-manager qemu-kvm \
   libvirt-daemon-system libvirt-clients virtinst libfdt-dev libssl-dev \
   pkg-config help2man gawk libncurses5 libncurses5-dev

  • For Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04:

    sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-dev libsdl1.2-dev libspice-protocol-dev \
   libspice-server-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusbredirhost-dev libtool-bin \
   iasl valgrind texinfo virt-manager qemu-kvm libvirt-bin virtinst \
   libfdt-dev libssl-dev pkg-config help2man gawk libncurses5 \
   libncurses5-dev

If you are using Ubuntu 16.04, the gcc version must be updated to gcc 7.3+ in order for the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) to build.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-7 g++-7
sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gcc gcc /usr/bin/gcc-7 70 --slave /usr/bin/g++ g++ /usr/bin/g++-7

Install CMake

If you use Ubuntu 18.04+ you can install CMake with apt:

sudo apt-get install cmake

For Ubuntu 16.04, CMake from apt is outdated and you must install CMake from sources. Refer to this short guide: https://cmake.org/install/

Build alsa-lib and alsa-utils

This project requires some new features in alsa-lib and alsa-utils, so build the newest ALSA from source code.

Warning

Installing alsa-lib systemwide may break some audio applications. Only perform this if you know what you are doing. We recommend that you install it locally (under $HOME) or use Docker (see Build SOF with Docker.)

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone git://git.alsa-project.org/alsa-lib
cd alsa-lib
./gitcompile
sudo make install

(Optional) To enable alsabat’s frequency analysis, install the FFT library before you configure alsa-utils.

sudo apt-get install libfftw3-dev libfftw3-doc

Clone, build, and install alsa-utils.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone git://git.alsa-project.org/alsa-utils
cd alsa-utils
./gitcompile
sudo make install

If you run into alsa-lib linking errors, try to re-build it with the libdir parameter.

cd ../alsa-lib
./gitcompile --prefix=/usr --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/
sudo make install
cd ../alsa-utils
./gitcompile --prefix=/usr --with-curses=ncurses --disable-xmlto --disable-bat
sudo make install

Note

If the gitcompile script does not work, refer to the INSTALL file for manual build instructions.

Create or append to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/alsa-lib/src/.libs:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Step 2 Build toolchains from source

Build the xtensa cross-compilation toolchains with crosstool-ng for Intel Bay Trail, Cherry Trail, Haswell, Broadwell, Apollo Lake, Cannon Lake, Ice Lake, Jasper Lake platforms and NXP i.MX8/i.MX8X/i.MX8M platforms.

crosstool-ng

Clone both repos and check out the sof-gcc8.1 branch.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/xtensa-overlay
git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/crosstool-ng
cd xtensa-overlay
git checkout sof-gcc8.1
cd ../crosstool-ng
git checkout sof-gcc8.1

Build crosstool-ng and install it in its own source directory.

./bootstrap
./configure --prefix=$(pwd)
make
make install

Toolchains

The config files provided refer to ../xtensa-overlay/ and point at different ./build/xtensa-*-elf subdirectories. Copy the ones you want to .config and build the cross-compiler(s) for your target platform(s). ./ct-ng build requires an network connection to download gcc components.

# Baytrail/Cherrytrail
cp config-byt-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build
# Haswell/Broadwell
cp config-hsw-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build
# Apollo Lake
cp config-apl-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build
# Cannon Lake, Ice Lake and Jasper Lake
cp config-cnl-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build
# i.MX8/i.MX8X
cp config-imx-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build
# i.MX8M
cp config-imx8m-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng build

./ct-ng is a Linux kernel style Makefile; so the sample commands below can be used to fix some out of date config-*-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 file or find default values missing from it:

./ct-ng help
cp config-apl-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config
./ct-ng oldconfig V=1
diff -u config-apl-gcc8.1-gdb8.1 .config

“Install” toolchains by copying them to $SOF_WORKSPACE.

ls builds/
# xtensa-apl-elf  xtensa-byt-elf   xtensa-cnl-elf   xtensa-hsw-elf  xtensa-imx-elf  xtensa-imx8m-elf
cp -r builds/* "$SOF_WORKSPACE"

Note

Haswell and Broadwell share the same toolchain: xtensa-hsw-elf

Bay Trail and Cherry Trail share the same toolchain: xtensa-byt-elf

Cannon Lake, Ice Lake and Jasper Lake share the same toolchain: xtensa-cnl-elf

i.MX8 and i.MX8X share the same toolchain: xtensa-imx-elf

Add your toolchains to your PATH variable.

PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-byt-elf/bin/:$PATH
PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-hsw-elf/bin/:$PATH
PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-apl-elf/bin/:$PATH
PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-cnl-elf/bin/:$PATH
PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-imx-elf/bin/:$PATH
PATH="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-imx8m-elf/bin/:$PATH

Additional headers

To get some required headers, clone the following newlib repository and switch to the xtensa branch.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone https://github.com/jcmvbkbc/newlib-xtensa
cd newlib-xtensa
git checkout -b xtensa origin/xtensa

Build and install for each platform.

XTENSA_ROOT="${SOF_WORKSPACE}"/xtensa-root
# Baytrail/Cherrytrail
./configure --target=xtensa-byt-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install
rm -fr rm etc/config.cache
# Haswell/Broadwell
./configure --target=xtensa-hsw-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install
rm -fr rm etc/config.cache
# Apollo Lake
./configure --target=xtensa-apl-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install
rm -fr rm etc/config.cache
# Cannon Lake, Ice Lake and Jasper Lake
./configure --target=xtensa-cnl-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install
rm -fr rm etc/config.cache
# i.MX8/i.MX8X
./configure --target=xtensa-imx-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install
rm -fr rm etc/config.cache
# i.MX8M
./configure --target=xtensa-imx8m-elf --prefix="${XTENSA_ROOT}"
make
make install

Note

--prefix= expects an absolute path. Define XTENSA_ROOT according to your environment.

The required headers are now in "$SOF_WORKSPACE"/xtensa-root, and cross-compilation toolchains for xtensa DSPs are set up.

Step 3 Build firmware binaries

After the SOF environment is set up, clone the sof repo.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/sof

One-step rebuild from scratch

To rebuild Sound Open Firmware in just one step, use scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh after setting up the environment.

Build the firmware for all platforms.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"/sof/
./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh -a

Note

This script will only work if the PATH includes both the cross-compiler and xtensa-root and if they are siblings in the same sof directory.

As of April 2020, you may specify one or more of the following platform arguments: byt, cht, hsw, bdw, apl, cnl, sue, icl, jsl, imx8, imx8x, imx8m. Example:

./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh byt
./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh byt apl

For the latest platforms list and help message, run the script without any argument. You can also enable debug builds with -d, enable rom builds with -r and speed up the build with -j [n]

./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh -d byt
./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh -d -r apl
./scripts/xtensa-build-all.sh -d -r -j 4 apl

Note

xtensa-build-all.sh script uses rimage to build the final firmware image. rimage uses by default a public key included in sof repo for signing. However, if you need to use some other external key for signing you can specify the path to your key as environment variable before invoking the build:

export PRIVATE_KEY_OPTION=-DRIMAGE_PRIVATE_KEY=/path_to_key/private.pem

The same export mechanism should work also when building with Docker.

Incremental builds

This is a more detailed build guide for the sof repo. Unlike xtensa-build-all.sh, this doesn’t rebuild everything every time.

Snippets below assume that your current directory is the root of the sof clone ("$SOF_WORKSPACE"/sof/).

CMake recommends out-of-tree builds. Among others, this lets you build different configurations/platforms in different build directories from the same source without starting from scratch.

Note

The -j argument tells make how many processes to use concurrently. Select a value that matches your build system.

for Bay Trail:

mkdir build_byt && cd build_byt
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-byt-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-byt-elf ..
make help # lists all available targets
make baytrail_defconfig
make bin -j4 VERBOSE=1

for Cherry Trail:

mkdir build_cht && cd build_cht
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-byt-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-byt-elf ..
make cherrytrail_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Haswell:

mkdir build_hsw && cd build_hsw
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-hsw-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-hsw-elf ..
make haswell_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Broadwell:

mkdir build_bdw && cd build_bdw
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-hsw-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-hsw-elf ..
make broadwell_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Apollo Lake:

mkdir build_apl && cd build_apl
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-apl-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-apl-elf ..
make apollolake_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Cannon Lake:

mkdir build_cnl && cd build_cnl
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-cnl-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-cnl-elf ..
make cannonlake_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Ice Lake:

mkdir build_icl && cd build_icl
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-cnl-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-cnl-elf ..
make icelake_defconfig
make bin -j4

for Jasper Lake:

mkdir build_jsl && cd build_jsl
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-cnl-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-cnl-elf ..
make jasperlake_defconfig
make bin -j4

for i.MX8:

mkdir build_imx8 && cd build_imx8
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-imx-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-imx-elf ..
make imx8_defconfig
make bin -j4

for i.MX8X:

mkdir build_imx8x && cd build_imx8x
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-imx-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-imx-elf ..
make imx8x_defconfig
make bin -j4

for i.MX8M:

mkdir build_imx8m && cd build_imx8m
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-imx8m-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-imx8m-elf ..
make imx8m_defconfig
make bin -j4

Note

After the ‘make *_defconfig’ step, you can customize your build with ‘make menuconfig’.

DEBUG and ROM options are available for the FW binary build. Enable them with ‘make menuconfig’.

mkdir build_cnl_custom && cd build_cnl_custom
cmake -DTOOLCHAIN=xtensa-cnl-elf -DROOT_DIR="$XTENSA_ROOT"/xtensa-cnl-elf ..
make cannonlake_defconfig
make menuconfig # select/deselect options and save
make bin -j4

Note

If you have Ninja installed, you can use it instead of Make. Just type cmake -GNinja … during the configuration step.

Firmware build results

The firmware binary files are located in build_<platform>/src/arch/xtensa/. Copy them to your target machine’s /lib/firmware/intel/sof folder.

sof-apl.ri  sof-bdw.ri  sof-byt.ri  sof-cht.ri  sof-cnl.ri  sof-hsw.ri

Step 4 Build topology and tools

One-step rebuild from scratch

Without any argument scripts/build-tools.sh rebuilds only the minimum subset of tools/.

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"/sof/
./scripts/build-tools.sh
./scripts/build-tools.sh -h
usage: ./scripts/build-tools.sh [-t|-f]
    [-t] Build test topologies
    [-f] Build fuzzer"

Incremental build

cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"/sof/tools/
mkdir build_tools && cd build_tools
cmake ..
make -j4

If your cmake --version is 3.13 or higher, you may prefer the new -B option:

cmake -B build_tools/
make  -C build_tools/ -j4 VERBOSE=1
rm -rf   build_tools/ # no need to change directory ever

Topology and tools build results

The topology files are located in the tools/build_tools/topology folder. Copy them to the target machine’s /lib/firmware/intel/sof-tplg folder.

The sof-logger tool is in the tools/build_tools/logger folder. Copy it to the target machine’s /usr/bin directory.

Build Linux kernel

Sound Open Firmware uses the Linux kernel dev branch, and it must work with other dev branch firmware and topology. This short section shows how to build Debian kernel packages tested on Ubuntu in a small number of commands. Note that these commands rebuild everything from scratch every time which makes then unsuitably slow for development. If you need to make kernel code changes, ignore this and look at Set up a Ktest-based environment, the README file of the kconfig repo, and the SOF Driver Architecture.

  1. Build the kernel with this branch.

    sudo apt-get install bison flex libelf-dev
cd "$SOF_WORKSPACE"
git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/linux
cd linux
git checkout topic/sof-dev
make defconfig
git clone https://github.com/thesofproject/kconfig
scripts/kconfig/merge_config.sh .config ./kconfig/base-defconfig ./kconfig/sof-defconfig  ./kconfig/mach-driver-defconfig ./kconfig/hdaudio-codecs-defconfig
(optional) make menuconfig

    Select the SOF driver support and disable SST drivers.

  2. Make the kernel deb package to install on the target machine.

    make deb-pkg -j 4

  3. Copy the three resulting .deb files to the target machine and install them.

    sudo dpkg -i /absolute/path/to/deb/file
sudo apt-get install -f