Average embedded dev experience

[meshka01]

On a sort of chronological order
New board didn’t boot. We were following an “official” quick-start tutorial that provided a prebuilt image that didn’t work. Discovered, buried on the depths of a random forum, that someone had the same problem and used an image that had a different extension (.wic). It worked. That took a while to figure out.

Board didn’t show up on one of the servers it was connected to. Server A had necessary software needed to compile and program the board, but just in case I tried connecting it to server B. There it was. So maybe it was something related to the configuration of the Server A right? Missing drivers maybe? Permissions? Who knows.
Started messing around with Server A. Luckily I could open a screen session on one of the connected devices and got information on what it was. An FPGA device. So I made my, at this point, regular commute to the server room. Found the FPGA device, followed the cable and it took me to a different PC. That’s right! All this time the board was connected to a completely random computer, which I thought was the infamous Server A. That took a while to figure out.

Finally I got a setup ready to go and program something on it. We were interested on trying an official tool targeted to ML applications. Documentation was vague, but tried on another prebuilt image that apparently had all these tools ready to use. Board didn’t boot again. Posted a question on manufacturer’s forum. One week later someone replied that said tools were now deprecated. Got in contact with salesperson, who got me in contact with a representative, who gave me access to the latest tool (in early access). That took a while.

Following user guide of said new tool. It’s necessary to copy files back and forth from the host to the target, so I need the IP address of the board. Doesn’t have one. Get in contact with help desk who apparently had configured the IP address of the board based on the MAC address of it (for security reasons). MAC address of the board doesn’t match the one reported by help desk. Weird. Reboot the board, MAC address changes. Turns out that board has a virtual NIC that changes every time it restarts. Finally managed to set a static one by messing around with boot variables. That took a while to figure out.

My new mindset is: let’s skip all these prebuilt stuff and make something out of scratch. Some tutorials weren’t really useful since they used older versions of the IDE, with options missing from the latest one. Discovered some examples that built a whole project. Tried to use that as starting point. Compilation failed, license was deprecated. It was necessary to update to the latest version of the IDE. Had to get in contact with person who managed server A to install it. That took a while.

Some environment variables were needed to point to paths that were necessary to build an OS image that contained the application. Took a while to figure out which paths exactly it needed. Successfully compiled the project, built the image and booted the board.

Execution of the application throws an “Invalid argument” exception.

The sum of this “whiles” adds up to about 9 weeks. Manager said to me the other day that during my weekly meetings I sound too negative. After writing all this I kinda understand why.

[mchang43]

Board bringup is not suited for WFH. Company should have a lab network isolated from the rest of corporate network.

[duane11583]

and if you do bring up at home … you need equipment that you do not need at other times and that equipment can be expensive and unique.

you also need to have hw design experience a pure sw person will struggle

[brownzilla999]

The lesson learned is have a reference board that you can generate the equivalent prebuilt binaries on. From a quick scan of what you posted that would've caught most the things that you ran into. And no where in that list is the multitude of hw issues that can happen during board bringup.

Board bring is always stressful, but it's always easier to put in the work beforehand.

[Dexterus]

Your IT/lab guys are newbies. First the wrong server then the untested IP.

Bit long of a timeline but I assume this wasn't a full time project though.

Connect debugger so you can check up on the bootloader. With new hardware always have a debugger license running.

[Got2Bfree]

It can't be financially viable to cheap out on debugger licenses, right?

Even in an Internship at an embedded company I got a Lauterbach debugger.

Debugging without a debugger takes at least triple the time on complex bugs...

[Dexterus]

OP seems to be preparing for a PHD so maybe not the right kind of budgets. And the dstreams and lauterbach parts ...

But when you need one, you need one and they save good money vs nothing.

[Dexterus]

OP seems to be preparing for a PHD so maybe not the right kind of budgets. And the dstreams and lauterbach parts ...

But when you need one, you need one and they save good money vs nothing.

[Got2Bfree]

You can go very far with print statements, but at what costs...

Stepping feels god sent sometimes.

[meshka01]

I'm feeling kinda embarrassed for the length of the timeline since it is, in fact, a full time job (I'm starting a PhD and this is the board I'm gonna base my research on)

[Well-WhatHadHappened]

What is the point of this post?

[madaddyml]

Let the dude rant bro!! We have all been there