Do you know how to bring up Zephyr RTOS on Laird Connectivity’s BL652 and BL654 Bluetooth modules? If not, this tutorial from Zephyr Project member Laird Connectivity will help. You can find the step-by-step guide and the video below. These materials originally ran on the Laird Connectivity website. For more content like this, please visit their resource page.

Getting Started with Zephyr on Ubuntu 20.04

This tutorial is based on the Zephyr Getting Started Guide. The only difference is we added an extra step (i.e. see step 5 below) to install the nRF Command Line Tools.

This tutorial will show you how to setup the Zephyr development environment, build the Blinky app and flash the app into the BL65x dev kit.

To watch video tutorial, click here.

1. Update the OS

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

2. Install Dependencies and verify CMake version.

   sudo apt install --no-install-recommends git cmake ninja-build gperf \
        ccache dfu-util device-tree-compiler wget \
        python3-dev python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-tk python3-wheel xz-utils file \
        make gcc gcc-multilib g++-multilib libsdl2-dev
        
   cmake --version
   

   If CMake version is not 3.13.1 or later, please visit Zephyr Getting Started Guide for steps on how to update CMake.

3. Get Zephyr and Install Python Dependencies
   • Install west, and make sure ~/.local/bin is on your PATH environment variable

     pip3 install --user -U west
     echo 'export PATH=~/.local/bin:"$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
     source ~/.bashrc
     

   • Get Zephyr Source Code

     west init ~/zephyrproject
     cd ~/zephyrproject
     west update
     

   • Export Zephyr CMake package

     west zephyr-export
     

   • Zephyr’s scripts/requirements.txt file declares additional Python dependencies. Install them with pip3

     pip3 install --user -r ~/zephyrproject/zephyr/scripts/requirements.txt
     

4. Install Toolchain
   • Download the latest SDK installer

     cd ~
     wget https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/sdk-ng/releases/download/v0.11.3/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run
     

   • Run the installer, installing the SDK in ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3

     chmod +x zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run
     ./zephyr-sdk-0.11.3-setup.run -- -d ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3
     

   • Install udev rules so we can flash the boards as a regular user

     sudo cp ~/zephyr-sdk-0.11.3/sysroots/x86_64-pokysdk-linux/usr/share/openocd/contrib/60-openocd.rules /etc/udev/rules.d
     sudo udevadm control --reload
     

5. Install nRF Command Line Tools Pkg
   • Download Tools from Nordic Semiconductor Websitehttps://www.nordicsemi.com/Software-and-Tools/Development-Tools/nRF-Command-Line-Tools/Download#in
   • Extract files into a directory of your choice
   • cd into the directory and install

     sudo apt-get install libncurses5
     sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite JLink_Linux_V680a_x86_64.deb
     sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite nRF-Command-Line-Tools_10_9_0_Linux-amd64.deb
     

6. Build Blinky
   • Build for BL652

     cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
     west build -p auto -b bl652_dvk samples/basic/blinky
     

   • Build for BL653

     cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
     west build -p auto -b bl653_dvk samples/basic/blinky
     

   • Build for BL654

     cd ~/zephyrproject/zephyr
     west build -p auto -b bl654_dvk samples/basic/blinky
     

7. Flash the build
   • Connect Ubuntu PC to USB2 port of the dev kit
   • Erase and then flash the build

     nrfjprog -e
     west flash
     

8. Verify LED1 is flashing