meta-cix

meta-cix is the first-pass Yocto BSP layer for the nclawzero cixmini target: Cix Sky1 / CP8180 on the Minisforum MS-R1 edge device platform.

The hardware is not in hand yet, so this repository is intentionally a bootstrap scaffold. It is meant to parse cleanly, document the known upstream inputs, and give the fleet a stable place to land the real board fixes once the MS-R1 arrives.

Target

• Machine: cixmini
• SoC family: Cix Sky1 / CP8180
• Reference platform: Minisforum MS-R1
• Architecture: aarch64
• Firmware model: UEFI + ACPI
• Yocto series: Scarthgap
• Image recipe: nclawzero-image-cixmini

The Cix mainline notes currently require clk_ignore_unused on the kernel command line. The machine config appends it through APPEND.

Upstream Survey

No public Cix Yocto/OpenEmbedded BSP layer was found during bootstrap under the expected names meta-cix, cix-sky1, or cixtech-yocto.

Relevant upstream inputs found:

• Cix manifest: https://github.com/cixtech/cix-manifest
• Cix Linux mainline patch stack: https://github.com/cixtech/cix-linux-main
• Cix developer docs: https://github.com/cixtech/cix-developer-docs
• Existing fleet pattern: https://gitlab.com/perlowja/meta-nclawzero
• Base fleet layer pattern: https://gitlab.com/perlowja/meta-nclawzero-base

The Cix public manifest is Debian/BSP oriented rather than Yocto oriented. The kernel recipe here therefore starts from Torvalds Linux v7.0-rc4 and applies the pinned cix-linux-main patches-7.0 stack, matching the ULTRA survey build shape.

Kernel Source

ULTRA already has a successful Debian-packaged kernel survey build:

~/cixtech-survey/kernel-build/deb-out/

That output contains linux-image-7.0.0-rc4-cix-ncz, headers, libc headers, debug symbols, .changes, and .buildinfo. Those .deb artifacts are useful for inspection and emergency bootstrapping, but they are not a clean Yocto kernel source. The useful source inputs are:

~/cixtech-survey/kernel-build/linux
~/cixtech-survey/cix-linux-main

recipes-kernel/linux-cix-ncz/linux-cix-ncz_7.0.bb encodes that flow reproducibly from public git sources instead of pointing at the local .deb directory.

Build Environment

The layer is expected at this path on ULTRA:

~/build-env/workspace/meta-cix

There was no pre-existing Poky checkout under ~/build-env during bootstrap. Use Scarthgap to match meta-nclawzero and meta-nclawzero-base.

Minimal setup:

mkdir -p ~/build-env/workspace
cd ~/build-env/workspace
git clone --depth=1 --branch=scarthgap https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky
git clone https://gitlab.com/nclawzero/meta-cix.git

cd poky
source oe-init-build-env build-cixmini
bitbake-layers add-layer ../../meta-cix
cat >> conf/local.conf <<'EOF'
MACHINE = "cixmini"
DISTRO = "nclawzero"
EOF
bitbake -p

When hardware blockers are resolved, the image entry point is:

bitbake nclawzero-image-cixmini

Layer Contents

• conf/machine/cixmini.conf: generic arm64 UEFI/ACPI machine config for Sky1
• conf/distro/nclawzero.conf: Scarthgap distro config derived from Poky
• recipes-bsp/cix-sky1-firmware: platform firmware placeholders and DSP blob
• recipes-kernel/linux-cix-ncz: Sky1 kernel recipe scaffold
• recipes-core/images/nclawzero-image-cixmini.bb: headless first-pass image
• conf/templates/cixmini: sample bblayers.conf and local.conf snippets

Investigate Further

• Confirm Minisforum MS-R1 ACPI tables, UEFI defaults, and boot order on real hardware.
• Confirm whether MS-R1 needs board-specific Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, NPU, VPU, or display firmware beyond the Cix DSP blob.
• Decide whether VPU/NPU support should stay as DKMS-style external drivers or become Yocto recipes in this layer.
• Replace genericarm64 WIC assumptions with a board-tested partition layout.
• Re-run yocto-check-layer after the kernel and firmware recipes are promoted from scaffold to production-ready recipes.

Maintainer

Jason Perlow [email protected]

Embedded-Linux background traces back to Sharp Electronics' Software Developer Liaison for the Zaurus PDA platform, December 2002 – February 2003. The community fork born from that platform — OpenZaurus (2003-2007) — became OpenEmbedded → Ångström → Yocto. Public postmortem of the Zaurus platform's developer-relations failures, written in February 2006, is at computingunplugged.com — many of those lessons (free/near-free tools, breadth-before-launch documentation, in-timezone English-speaking support, full-environment rebuildability, no SDK fragmentation) shape this layer's design today.

Lineage:

Sharp Zaurus (2002)         — closed SharpROM, broken developer relations
  ↓
OpenZaurus (2003-2007)      — community fork
  ↓
OpenEmbedded                — generalized framework
  ↓
Ångström                    — distribution
  ↓
Yocto                       — what meta-cix and meta-tegra both build on

Linux Foundation involvement includes prior LF Editorial Director role and ongoing participation in the Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded community.

Adjacent active work in the wider claw-family ecosystem:

• meta-nclawzero, meta-nclawzero-base — sister Yocto BSP layers for the parent nclawzero distro this layer serves
• nclawzero/* — distro maintainership
• openclaw/openclaw, zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw — upstream contributions in the agent runtime layer that consumes this BSP

Patches and BSP feedback welcome via GitLab MRs or GitHub PRs.