🛠 Premiers pas : comprendre le monstre à 9 cœurs et entrer dans Linux via ADB

Objectives

Discover the Arduino Portenta X8 (SKU ABX00049, €223.00 on the official store in October 2026): not just a simple Arduino board, but two industrial products in a single 66 × 25 mm module — "no fewer than 9 cores" according to Arduino. On one side, an NXP i.MX 8M Mini (4× Cortex-A53 up to 1.8 GHz + Cortex-M4 up to 400 MHz) running Linux with 2 GB of LPDDR4 and 16 GB of eMMC; on the other, a ST STM32H747XI (Cortex-M7 + Cortex-M4) running Arduino. You will install adb, connect to the embedded Linux, and get your bearings. Beware of the naming trap: the X8 is not an STM32MP1 board and is not the Portenta H7!

Hardware

• 1 × Arduino Portenta X8
• 1 × USB-C data cable (Power Delivery supported by the board)
• ⚠️ A USB 3.0 port on the PC is recommended to guarantee current: the board can draw up to 4 W (4000 mW max, 2350 mW typical in busy loop)
• PC with adb installed (Android platform-tools) or the Arduino IDE which provides it
• The bare module has no RJ45 jack nor USB-A port: for Ethernet and extended USB, you will need a carrier board (Max/Hat/Mid Carrier)

Complete code

# 1. Brancher la X8 en USB-C sur un port USB 3.0 du PC.
# 2. Vérifier que la carte est visible (VID 2341, PID 0061) :
adb devices
# (sous Linux : sudo adb devices ou règle udev pour le VID 0x2341)

# 3. Entrer dans le Linux embarqué (utilisateur par defaut : fio)
adb shell
#  fio@portenta-x8:~$

# 4. Premiers repères dans le shell Yocto (Linux microPlatform)
cat /etc/os-release        # distribution LMP (Foundries.io, base Yocto)
uname -a                   # noyau 6.1.24-lmp-standard en usine
nproc                      # 4 : les quatre Cortex-A53 visibles de Linux
free -h                    # ~2 Go de LPDDR4
df -h /                    # 16 Go d'eMMC
exit

# 5. Dashboard de maintenance « Arduino Linux Wizard » depuis le PC :
adb forward tcp:8080 tcp:80
# puis ouvrir http://localhost:8080 dans un navigateur

Expected verification

adb devices lists the board; adb shell drops you onto a fio@portenta-x8 prompt, nproc returns 4 and uname -a displays the 6.1.24-lmp-standard kernel. The embedded Linux is Foundries.io's Linux microPlatform (LMP), a Yocto distribution with integrated Docker support — this is the gateway to all following tutorials. The Linux Wizard dashboard (step 5) is the official maintenance tool for monitoring the board's status.

Common errors

• Confusing it with the Portenta H7 or an STM32MP1 board: the X8 is a dual module (i.MX 8M Mini on the Linux side + STM32H747 on the Arduino side); the Linux side is not programmed with the Arduino IDE but with containers, and the Arduino side uses the "Arduino Mbed OS Portenta Boards" core.
• adb devices is empty: a "charging" USB-C cable without data lines (cause #1), or a USB 2.0 port with insufficient current for heavy load — switch to USB 3.0.
• Looking for documentation on docs.portenta.io: the old site is dead (DNS failure) and the arduino/PortentaDocs repository returns 404; all documentation has migrated to docs.arduino.cc (official tutorial: X8 Fundamentals).
• Expecting a graphical desktop: this is an embedded Yocto distribution, you work in shell and Docker containers, not on a desktop.
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