Files
forgefirm/BUILD.md
T
ScottW514 562631d9bf docs: describe the firmware that exists; ship the NXP firmware EULA
README: replace the stalled REST/GUI roadmap with what the firmware does -
GRBL mode over TCP for LightBurn/UGS/cncjs, optional cloud mode, the web
control panel, cameras, A/B install beside the factory firmware - plus the
supported hardware incl. the 8 MP camera limitation and a real roadmap.

kas/README: xvclk is the board's 24 MHz oscillator; the pin/push rule covers
every source repo; camera and motion sections are hardware-validated, with the
OV8856 caveat spelled out; the device-tree item closes with the control_12v
residue named; forgectrl is the machine-services daemon with two supervised
controllers.

LIGHTBURN.md: drop the pre-first-light status line.

BUILD.md: state the NXP firmware licensing and where the EULA lives on the
machine. The image now installs firmware-imx-lic, so the EULA text ships beside
the VPU/EPDC blobs it covers; a bbappend declares that package at parse time,
which is what makes it installable from an image recipe.
2026-08-13 12:34:48 -04:00

3.0 KiB

Build

ForgeFIRM is built with kas, which manages the Yocto layers and pins their versions. The forgefirm repo is the base of the build.

Builds run on a Linux host, or on WSL2 (officially supported by Yocto — keep the tree on the native ext4 filesystem, not /mnt/c).

Host setup

On Ubuntu/Debian (including WSL2), install the Yocto host packages and kas:

sudo apt-get install -y gawk wget git diffstat unzip texinfo gcc build-essential \
  chrpath socat cpio python3 python3-pip python3-pexpect xz-utils debianutils \
  iputils-ping python3-git python3-jinja2 python3-subunit zstd liblz4-tool file \
  locales libacl1 lz4 rsync
sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
pipx install kas        # use pipx — Ubuntu 24.04 (PEP 668) blocks `pip install --user`

For other distros, see the Yocto Project Quick Build. Do not build as root (the Yocto sanity checks refuse it).

Get the sources

Clone the repos as siblings (the kas config references meta-openglow at ../meta-openglow while it is under active Scarthgap migration):

git clone https://github.com/ScottW514/forgefirm.git
git clone https://github.com/ScottW514/meta-openglow.git
git clone https://github.com/ScottW514/kernel-module-glowforge.git
openglow-forgefirm/
├── forgefirm/                 ← base repo, build runs here
├── meta-openglow/
└── kernel-module-glowforge/

Build the image

cd forgefirm
kas build kas/forgefirm-glowforge.yml

kas fetches the upstream layers into forgefirm/layers/, builds in forgefirm/build/, and produces the bootable image at:

forgefirm/build/tmp/deploy/images/glowforge/forgefirm-image-glowforge.rootfs.wic.gz

(The u-boot-glowforge.imx also deployed there is reference-only: every supported install/boot flow keeps the factory bootloader on the eMMC. Its env Kconfig now matches the factory layout — 0x80000 primary / 0x82000 redundant — but it is not wired into any install path and flashing it is unsupported.)

For exact, reproducible layer versions, generate a lockfile once:

kas lock kas/forgefirm-glowforge.yml

See kas/README.md for details, the container-build option, and the Scarthgap migration backlog.

Third-party firmware licensing

The i.MX6 BSP installs NXP firmware blobs (VPU, EPDC) that are distributed under NXP's firmware EULA. The build config accepts it (ACCEPT_FSL_EULA = "1"), and the image ships the license text alongside the blobs at /usr/share/licenses/firmware-imx/EULA — keep it there in any redistributed image. The SDMA firmware comes from linux-firmware, which carries its own license package.

Write to an SD card

cd build/tmp/deploy/images/glowforge
sudo zcat forgefirm-image-glowforge.rootfs.wic.gz | dd of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

To install onto the factory eMMC (dual-boot with the Glowforge firmware), see INSTALL.md.