Build Android 11 for SECO Boards - SOLON (formerly SBC-C31)

Building a custom Android 11 for SECO board is a simple operation.

In the following instructions, we consider the specific case of C31, SECO SBC based on RK339 from Rockchip. Therefore at the moment “C31” is the only valid value for <BOARD_CODE>.

Requirements:

• a powerful PC HOST with Linux OS system (Ubuntu, Debian, ARCH Linux are valid options);

• a docker environment installed and running;

• a configured git and repo environment;

• a personal access token or a deploy token, to download source code from git.seco.com;

• 250 GB of free space on storage drive;

Detailed procedure:

• Configure repo:

  • mkdir ~/bin

  • PATH=~/bin:$PATH

  • curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo

  • chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

• Configure git:

  • git config --global user.name "Your Name"

  • git config --global user.email "your.name@example.com"

• Obtain an access token:

  • if you have an account on git.seco.com, you can generate your personal access token from https://git.seco.com/-/profile/personal_access_token

  • if you don’t have an account, ask your contacts in Seco and you will be provided a deploy token specifically prepared for this Android release
    

The full Android repo can be divided in two blocks:

• AOSP: repositories downloaded directly from Google

• SECO: repositories downloaded from our servers

While AOSP is freely downloadable, SECO part is shared only via access token (i.e. username and password). Therefore, for every GIT repository downloaded from git.seco.com, username and password should be inserted. Consider to speed up the procedure, adding the following section in ~/.gitconfig

[credential "<https://git.seco.com/arm/rockchip/release/android/android_11.0.0/"]>
  username = <username>
  helper = cache --timeout=86400

Thanks to this, username is never requested, and password is requested only once, and cached for future use up to the declared timeout.

• Init and download Android 11 repository:

  • mkdir ANDROID_11

  • cd ANDROID_11

  • repo init -u ssh://git@git.seco.com/arm/rockchip/release/android_11.0.0/manifest.git

  • repo sync -j 20

• Pull the latest SECO docker for Android building image:

  • sudo docker pull secodocker/android-builder:latest

• Run SECO docker for Android build:

  • docker run --rm -it \
        --privileged \
        --volume="/etc/passwd:/etc/passwd:ro" \
        --volume="/etc/group:/etc/group:ro" \
        --volume="/etc/shadow:/etc/shadow:ro"  \
        --volume $PWD:/workdir \
        -v ~/.bash_history:${HOME}/.bash_history:rw \
        -v ~/.vimrc:${HOME}/.vimrc:rw \
        -v ~/.vim:${HOME}/.vim:rw \
        -v ~/.cache:${HOME}/.cache:rw \
        -e BOARDCODE=${boardcode} \
        --workdir="/workdir" \
        --user $(id -u "$(stat -c "%U" Android.bp)"):$(id -g) \
        secodocker/android-builder:latest

• Set up the Android environment and run the build commands:

  • source setup<BOARD_CODE> # for example: source setupC31

  • ./build.sh -f

• Wait until the end of the compilation process (build process can last 1 or more hours according to the speed of your system)

• You can produce a tar.gz archive to be used for installation by running the following script:

  • prepare_distro.sh [<IMAGE_NAME>] # Where [<IMAGE_NAME>] is an optional text string for naming the image file (default to “Android_11_<BOARD_CODE>_Distro_<DATE>.tar.gz”)

• You will find the results of the build process in the folder ANDROID_11/Distros/

The freshly created distro includes everything you need to flash the board:

• system binaries (bootloader, kernel, support partition images, android system…)

• flashing tool and script to launch it easily

• otapackage to update an already working board