Downloading and transferring a reference image

Downloading a reference image

To download a QNX Apps and Media reference image:

On the QNX web site (www.qnx.com), navigate to the Developers > Downloads section.
Download the zip file with the appropriate reference image to your host system.
Extract this zip file to a convenient location.

The zip file for VMware contains a .vmx file, which can be opened with VMware. See "Booting a reference image." Reference images for other platforms contain a .img file, which you'll need to transfer to a micro SD card or USB key, depending on the platform.

These reference images use this naming pattern: platform-media.img. For example, baytrail-usb.img or imx61sabresmart-sd.img.

The zip files also contain one or more tar files. These are included as a convenience, so you can view the contents of the reference image on a host system that doesn't read QNX6 filesystems.

For more information about downloading a reference image, see the QNX SDK for Apps and Media 1.1 Installation Notes.

Transferring a reference image to removable media

The QNX Apps and Media reference images support only micro SD cards or USB keys, depending on the target platform. The reference images are approximately 500 MB when zipped, and expand to 4 GB when extracted. The minimum requirements for the removable storage are:

micro SD card: 4 GB Class 10
USB key: 4 GB USB 3.0

We recommend UHS-I cards for better read/write performance. These cards can be identified by a "U" with a number "1" inside it, as shown below:

Figure 1. The UHS-I identifier

Different hardware platforms (boards) support different removable media devices. Use the type of device your platform requires:

BeagleBone Black — micro SD card: SanDisk Ultra^® microSDHC™ UHS-I SD card for mobile devices, 4 GB or larger
i.MX6x SABRE Smart — micro SD card: SanDisk Ultra^® microSDHC™ UHS-I SD card for mobile devices, 4 GB or larger (Use a micro to SD converter to insert the micro SD card into the SD card slot.)
OMAP5 — micro SD card: SanDisk Ultra^® microSDHC™ UHS-I SD card for mobile devices, 4 GB or larger
VMware — not required
x86 Bay Trail — USB key: Kingston Technology 8 GB DataTraveler G4 USB 3.0 flash drive

To transfer a QNX Apps and Media reference image to a micro SD card or USB key, follow the instructions for your host OS.

When you have finished transferring the reference image to the removable media, follow the platform-specific startup instructions.

Linux

On a Linux host system, use these command-line instructions to copy a reference image to removable storage:

sudo dd bs=1048576 if=your_image of=/dev/sdx

This command causes the dd utility to write 1 MB chunks of data to the disk at a time. This command assumes that sdx is the SD card (or other removable storage).

Note: The device name shouldn't include a partition suffix. For example, do not use /dev/sdx1. However, on some Linux variants, the device name can be /dev/mmcblk0.

Windows

On a Windows system, to copy a reference image to removable storage:

If you don't already have Win32 Disk Imager on your system, download it from this site, then install it:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/
Run the Win32 Disk Imager.
Browse to the location where you extracted the the image from the zip archive, and click Open.
Click Write to write the .img file to your microSD card.
Click Yes to begin the process of writing the image. When it's complete, you'll see the message "Write successful."
Click OK, then exit Win32 Disk Imager.