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Getting Started

This page explains how to start-up Ubuntu or Debian on RZ MPU evaluation board kit.

Step 1: Obtain an evaluation board

Click the button below to get the board.

Board
Get the board for RZ MPUs.

The RZ/G2L Evaluation Board Kit (EVK) is the ideal board kit for RZ/G2L evaluation.

The following items are included in the RZ/G2L Evaluation Board Kit.

EquipmentDetails
RZ/G2L Evaluation BoardEvaluation board itself
Micro USB to Serial CableFor serial communication between PC and the board

Step 2: Obtain necessary environment

Please prepare the following equipment.

  • PC used for creating a bootable microSD card

    • At least 50GB or more free space of HDD/SDD
    • 8GB or more RAM
    • 4-core or more CPU
    • Ubuntu (64-bit) 22.04 LTS or 24.04 LTS
      • sudo permission and internet connection are required.

  • microSD card for Ubuntu/Debian bootable image

    • Type: SDHC, SDXC
    • Capacity: Minimum 32GB

Step 3: Obtain Ubuntu and Debian for RZ MPU Linux

Click the button below to get Renesas software for Ubuntu or Debian.

Get Renesas Software

Step 4: Create a bootable microSD card

To create a bootable microSD card for Ubuntu, see RZ/G2L Ubuntu Bootable Tool.

To create a bootable microSD card for Debian, see RZ/G2L Debian Bootable Tool.

Step 5: Write flash writer and bootloaders

The following tools are used in the instructions below. Please install them to your PC in advance.

Tera Term (terminal software)

FTDI VCP driver

minicom

1. Setup EVK's peripheral

To write flash writer and bootloaders, you need to connect your PC to the EVK with a USB serial cable.

2. Set boot mode to SCIF download mode

Turn off the power of EVK, then set the SW11 as follows.

SW11-1SW11-2SW11-3SW11-4
OFFONOFFON

3. Configure terminal software

Configure the setting of serial communication on terminal software as follows:

VariableValue
Baud rate115200 bps
Data8 bits
Paritynone
Stop1 bit
Flow controlnone

4. Prepare flash writer and bootloaders

The flash writer and the bootloaders are stored in the package. Unzip the package and pick up flash write and bootloaders.

  • Flash writer

    • Flash_Writer_SCIF_RZG2L_SMARC_PMIC_DDR4_2GB_1PCS.mot

  • Bootloaders

    • bl2_bp_spi-smarc-rzg2l_pmic.srec
    • fip-smarc-rzg2l_pmic.srec

5. Download flash writer to RAM

Turn on the power of the EVK by pressing SW9. The messages below are shown on the terminal.

 SCIF Download mode
 (C) Renesas Electronics Corp.
-- Load Program to System RAM ---------------
please send !

Send an image of Flash Writer using terminal software after the message please send ! is shown.

Open the File menu, then select Send file... to open Send file dialog.

Select the Flash Writer image in the dialog, and press Open button.

Press Ctrl+A+S, then select ascii for upload mode.

Select the Flash Writer image file.

Press any key when upload is completed.

After successfully downloading the image, the Flash Writer starts automatically and shows a message like below on the terminal.

Flash writer for RZ/G2 Series V1.06 Aug.10,2022                                                    
 Product Code : RZ/G2L
>

6. Write the bootloaders

6-1. Change baud rate of serial port

Before writing the loader files, change the flash writer transfer rate from default (115200 bps) to high speed (921600 bps) with SUP command.

SUP

After the SUP command, change the serial communication protocol speed from 115200 bps to 921600 bps on the terminal software.

6-2. Write bl2 file

Execute XLS2 command to write boot loader binary files.

XLS2

This command receives binary data from the serial port and writes the data to a specified address of the Flash ROM with information where the data should be loaded on the address of the main memory. Set the following addresses respectively.

  • Address to load to RAM: H'11E00
  • Address to save to ROM: H'00000

For example:

>XLS2                                                                                              
===== Qspi writing of RZ/G2 Board Command =============                                            
Load Program to Spiflash                                                                           
Writes to any of SPI address.                                                                      
 Dialog : AT25QL128A                                                                               
Program Top Address & Qspi Save Address                                                            
===== Please Input Program Top Address ============                                                
  Please Input : H'11E00                                                                           

===== Please Input Qspi Save Address ===                                                           
  Please Input : H'00000                                                                           
Work RAM(H'50000000-H'53FFFFFF) Clear....                                                          
please send ! ('.' & CR stop load)

Send the data of bl2_bp-spi-smarc-rzg2*.srec from terminal software in the same way as the Flash Writer after the message please send ! is shown.

Note

In the case that the following message is shown, enter Y.

SPI Data Clear(H'FF) Check :H'00000000-0000FFFF,Clear OK?(y/n)

After writing the data is completed, the following messages like below are shown on the terminal.

SPI Data Clear(H'FF) Check :H'00000000-0000FFFF Erasing..Erase Completed
SAVE SPI-FLASH.......
======= Qspi  Save Information  =================
 SpiFlashMemory Stat Address : H'00000000
 SpiFlashMemory End Address  : H'0000CA38
===========================================================

>

6-3. Write fip file

Execute XLS2 command to write fip file.

XLS2

Set the following addresses respectively for the fip file.

  • Address to load to RAM: H'00000
  • Address to save to ROM: H'1D200

For example:

>XLS2
===== Qspi writing of RZ/G2 Board Command =============
Load Program to Spiflash
Writes to any of SPI address.
 Dialog : AT25QL128A
Program Top Address & Qspi Save Address
===== Please Input Program Top Address ============
  Please Input : H'00000

===== Please Input Qspi Save Address ===
  Please Input : H'1D200
Work RAM(H'50000000-H'53FFFFFF) Clear....
please send ! ('.' & CR stop load)

Send the data of fip-smarc-rzg2*.srec from terminal software in the same way as the Flash Writer after the message please send ! is shown.

Note

In the case that the following message is shown, enter Y.

SPI Data Clear(H'FF) Check :H'00000000-0000FFFF,Clear OK?(y/n)

After writing the data is completed, the following messages like below are shown on the terminal.

SPI Data Clear(H'FF) Check :H'00010000-000DFFFF Erasing..............Erase Completed
SAVE SPI-FLASH.......
======= Qspi  Save Information  =================
 SpiFlashMemory Stat Address : H'0001D200
 SpiFlashMemory End Address  : H'000DD9EF
===========================================================

>

6-4. Restore baud rate of serial port

After writing two loader files is completed, restore the serial communication protocol speed to 115200 bps on the terminal software.

Then, turn off the power of the board by pressing the SW9.

Step 6: Run Ubuntu / Debian on RZ EVK

1. Setup EVK's peripheral

Before you start Ubuntu / Debian on RZ EVK, you need to set up the EVK.

2. Setup EVK's DIP switch

Set up DIP switch SW1 and SW11 as follows.

  • SW1

    SW1-1SW1-2
    ONOFF

  • SW11

    SW11-1SW11-2SW11-3SW11-4
    OFFOFFOFFON

3. Setup u-boot

Turn on the power of the EVK by pressing SW9, and press Enter key within a few seconds to interrupt the boot process. If it succeeds, you will see the following messages:

NOTICE:  BL2: v2.9(release):v2.5/rzg2l-1.00-3892-gcc1869562
NOTICE:  BL2: Built : 20:49:37, Jun 22 2025
NOTICE:  BL2: Booting BL31
NOTICE:  BL31: v2.9(release):v2.5/rzg2l-1.00-3892-gcc1869562
NOTICE:  BL31: Built : 20:49:38, Jun 22 2025


U-Boot 2021.10-g5141064c15 (Jun 22 2025 - 20:48:27 +0700)

CPU:   Renesas Electronics CPU rev 1.0
Model: smarc-rzg2l
DRAM:  1.9 GiB
WDT:   watchdog@0000000012800800
WDT:   Started with servicing (60s timeout)
MMC:   sd@11c00000: 0, sd@11c10000: 1
Loading Environment from MMC... OK
In:    serial@1004b800
Out:   serial@1004b800
Err:   serial@1004b800
U-boot WDT started!
Net:
Error: ethernet@11c20000 address not set.
No ethernet found.

Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
=>
=>

Configure U-Boot environment variables to boot from a microSD card as follows:

setenv bootcmd 'load mmc 1:1 0x48080000 efi/boot/bootaa64.efi; bootefi 0x48080000'
saveenv

U-Boot will load "efi/boot/bootaa64.efi" from EFI partition (default: partition 1) of the microSD card. If the EFI partition resides on a different partition, such as partition 2, please modify "1:1" to "1:2".

setenv bootcmd 'load mmc 1:2 0x48080000 efi/boot/bootaa64.efi; bootefi 0x48080000'
saveenv

U-Boot will load "efi/boot/bootaa64.efi" from EFI partition (default: partition 2) of the microSD card. If the EFI partition resides on a different partition, such as partition 1, please modify "1:2" to "1:1".

Note

The RZ/G2L EVK does not have a MAC address, so you need to set an appropriate MAC address when you use ethernet. You can set the address on U-boot as follows:

  • For eth0,

    setenv ethaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
saveenv

  • For eth1,

    setenv eth1addr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
saveenv

To restore default environment variables in u-boot, run the following command:

env default -a

Press the RESET button (SW10) to start Ubuntu / Debian.

3. Configure network

When you turn on the power of the EVK or press the RESET button, you will see GNU GRUB menu. Select Linux-renesas-6.1 in the menu, and press Enter.

When you run Ubuntu / Debian for the first time on the environment, configure network so that you can install packages with apt.

Edit "/etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml" as follows:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    end0:
      dhcp4: true

Then, execute the following command to apply the settings.

sudo netplan apply

Edit "/etc/network/interfaces" as follows:

allow-hotplug end0
iface end0 inet dhcp

Then, execute the following command as root to apply the settings.

systemctl restart networking

4. Run Ubuntu / Debian on EVK

Turn on the power of the EVK or press the RESET button. Select Linux-renesas-6.1 in the GNU GRUB menu, and press Enter to run Ubuntu / Debian on the EVK.