1 ============================================ 2 The Intel Assabet (SA-1110 evaluation) board 3 ============================================ 4 5 Please see: 6 http://developer.intel.com 7 8 Also some notes from John G Dorsey <jd5q@andrew.cmu.edu>: 9 http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wearable/software/assabet.html 10 11 12 Building the kernel 13 ------------------- 14 15 To build the kernel with current defaults:: 16 17 make assabet_defconfig 18 make oldconfig 19 make zImage 20 21 The resulting kernel image should be available in linux/arch/arm/boot/zImage. 22 23 24 Installing a bootloader 25 ----------------------- 26 27 A couple of bootloaders able to boot Linux on Assabet are available: 28 29 BLOB (http://www.lartmaker.nl/lartware/blob/) 30 31 BLOB is a bootloader used within the LART project. Some contributed 32 patches were merged into BLOB to add support for Assabet. 33 34 Compaq's Bootldr + John Dorsey's patch for Assabet support 35 (http://www.handhelds.org/Compaq/bootldr.html) 36 (http://www.wearablegroup.org/software/bootldr/) 37 38 Bootldr is the bootloader developed by Compaq for the iPAQ Pocket PC. 39 John Dorsey has produced add-on patches to add support for Assabet and 40 the JFFS filesystem. 41 42 RedBoot (http://sources.redhat.com/redboot/) 43 44 RedBoot is a bootloader developed by Red Hat based on the eCos RTOS 45 hardware abstraction layer. It supports Assabet amongst many other 46 hardware platforms. 47 48 RedBoot is currently the recommended choice since it's the only one to have 49 networking support, and is the most actively maintained. 50 51 Brief examples on how to boot Linux with RedBoot are shown below. But first 52 you need to have RedBoot installed in your flash memory. A known to work 53 precompiled RedBoot binary is available from the following location: 54 55 - ftp://ftp.netwinder.org/users/n/nico/ 56 - ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/arm/people/nico/ 57 - ftp://ftp.handhelds.org/pub/linux/arm/sa-1100-patches/ 58 59 Look for redboot-assabet*.tgz. Some installation infos are provided in 60 redboot-assabet*.txt. 61 62 63 Initial RedBoot configuration 64 ----------------------------- 65 66 The commands used here are explained in The RedBoot User's Guide available 67 on-line at http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/docs.html. 68 Please refer to it for explanations. 69 70 If you have a CF network card (my Assabet kit contained a CF+ LP-E from 71 Socket Communications Inc.), you should strongly consider using it for TFTP 72 file transfers. You must insert it before RedBoot runs since it can't detect 73 it dynamically. 74 75 To initialize the flash directory:: 76 77 fis init -f 78 79 To initialize the non-volatile settings, like whether you want to use BOOTP or 80 a static IP address, etc, use this command:: 81 82 fconfig -i 83 84 85 Writing a kernel image into flash 86 --------------------------------- 87 88 First, the kernel image must be loaded into RAM. If you have the zImage file 89 available on a TFTP server:: 90 91 load zImage -r -b 0x100000 92 93 If you rather want to use Y-Modem upload over the serial port:: 94 95 load -m ymodem -r -b 0x100000 96 97 To write it to flash:: 98 99 fis create "Linux kernel" -b 0x100000 -l 0xc0000 100 101 102 Booting the kernel 103 ------------------ 104 105 The kernel still requires a filesystem to boot. A ramdisk image can be loaded 106 as follows:: 107 108 load ramdisk_image.gz -r -b 0x800000 109 110 Again, Y-Modem upload can be used instead of TFTP by replacing the file name 111 by '-y ymodem'. 112 113 Now the kernel can be retrieved from flash like this:: 114 115 fis load "Linux kernel" 116 117 or loaded as described previously. To boot the kernel:: 118 119 exec -b 0x100000 -l 0xc0000 120 121 The ramdisk image could be stored into flash as well, but there are better 122 solutions for on-flash filesystems as mentioned below. 123 124 125 Using JFFS2 126 ----------- 127 128 Using JFFS2 (the Second Journalling Flash File System) is probably the most 129 convenient way to store a writable filesystem into flash. JFFS2 is used in 130 conjunction with the MTD layer which is responsible for low-level flash 131 management. More information on the Linux MTD can be found on-line at: 132 http://www.linux-mtd.infradead.org/. A JFFS howto with some infos about 133 creating JFFS/JFFS2 images is available from the same site. 134 135 For instance, a sample JFFS2 image can be retrieved from the same FTP sites 136 mentioned below for the precompiled RedBoot image. 137 138 To load this file:: 139 140 load sample_img.jffs2 -r -b 0x100000 141 142 The result should look like:: 143 144 RedBoot> load sample_img.jffs2 -r -b 0x100000 145 Raw file loaded 0x00100000-0x00377424 146 147 Now we must know the size of the unallocated flash:: 148 149 fis free 150 151 Result:: 152 153 RedBoot> fis free 154 0x500E0000 .. 0x503C0000 155 156 The values above may be different depending on the size of the filesystem and 157 the type of flash. See their usage below as an example and take care of 158 substituting yours appropriately. 159 160 We must determine some values:: 161 162 size of unallocated flash: 0x503c0000 - 0x500e0000 = 0x2e0000 163 size of the filesystem image: 0x00377424 - 0x00100000 = 0x277424 164 165 We want to fit the filesystem image of course, but we also want to give it all 166 the remaining flash space as well. To write it:: 167 168 fis unlock -f 0x500E0000 -l 0x2e0000 169 fis erase -f 0x500E0000 -l 0x2e0000 170 fis write -b 0x100000 -l 0x277424 -f 0x500E0000 171 fis create "JFFS2" -n -f 0x500E0000 -l 0x2e0000 172 173 Now the filesystem is associated to a MTD "partition" once Linux has discovered 174 what they are in the boot process. From Redboot, the 'fis list' command 175 displays them:: 176 177 RedBoot> fis list 178 Name FLASH addr Mem addr Length Entry point 179 RedBoot 0x50000000 0x50000000 0x00020000 0x00000000 180 RedBoot config 0x503C0000 0x503C0000 0x00020000 0x00000000 181 FIS directory 0x503E0000 0x503E0000 0x00020000 0x00000000 182 Linux kernel 0x50020000 0x00100000 0x000C0000 0x00000000 183 JFFS2 0x500E0000 0x500E0000 0x002E0000 0x00000000 184 185 However Linux should display something like:: 186 187 SA1100 flash: probing 32-bit flash bus 188 SA1100 flash: Found 2 x16 devices at 0x0 in 32-bit mode 189 Using RedBoot partition definition 190 Creating 5 MTD partitions on "SA1100 flash": 191 0x00000000-0x00020000 : "RedBoot" 192 0x00020000-0x000e0000 : "Linux kernel" 193 0x000e0000-0x003c0000 : "JFFS2" 194 0x003c0000-0x003e0000 : "RedBoot config" 195 0x003e0000-0x00400000 : "FIS directory" 196 197 What's important here is the position of the partition we are interested in, 198 which is the third one. Within Linux, this correspond to /dev/mtdblock2. 199 Therefore to boot Linux with the kernel and its root filesystem in flash, we 200 need this RedBoot command:: 201 202 fis load "Linux kernel" 203 exec -b 0x100000 -l 0xc0000 -c "root=/dev/mtdblock2" 204 205 Of course other filesystems than JFFS might be used, like cramfs for example. 206 You might want to boot with a root filesystem over NFS, etc. It is also 207 possible, and sometimes more convenient, to flash a filesystem directly from 208 within Linux while booted from a ramdisk or NFS. The Linux MTD repository has 209 many tools to deal with flash memory as well, to erase it for example. JFFS2 210 can then be mounted directly on a freshly erased partition and files can be 211 copied over directly. Etc... 212 213 214 RedBoot scripting 215 ----------------- 216 217 All the commands above aren't so useful if they have to be typed in every 218 time the Assabet is rebooted. Therefore it's possible to automate the boot 219 process using RedBoot's scripting capability. 220 221 For example, I use this to boot Linux with both the kernel and the ramdisk 222 images retrieved from a TFTP server on the network:: 223 224 RedBoot> fconfig 225 Run script at boot: false true 226 Boot script: 227 Enter script, terminate with empty line 228 >> load zImage -r -b 0x100000 229 >> load ramdisk_ks.gz -r -b 0x800000 230 >> exec -b 0x100000 -l 0xc0000 231 >> 232 Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution): 3 233 Use BOOTP for network configuration: true 234 GDB connection port: 9000 235 Network debug at boot time: false 236 Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - are you sure (y/n)? y 237 238 Then, rebooting the Assabet is just a matter of waiting for the login prompt. 239 240 241 242 Nicolas Pitre 243 nico@fluxnic.net 244 245 June 12, 2001 246 247 248 Status of peripherals in -rmk tree (updated 14/10/2001) 249 ------------------------------------------------------- 250 251 Assabet: 252 Serial ports: 253 Radio: TX, RX, CTS, DSR, DCD, RI 254 - PM: Not tested. 255 - COM: TX, RX, CTS, DSR, DCD, RTS, DTR, PM 256 - PM: Not tested. 257 - I2C: Implemented, not fully tested. 258 - L3: Fully tested, pass. 259 - PM: Not tested. 260 261 Video: 262 - LCD: Fully tested. PM 263 264 (LCD doesn't like being blanked with neponset connected) 265 266 - Video out: Not fully 267 268 Audio: 269 UDA1341: 270 - Playback: Fully tested, pass. 271 - Record: Implemented, not tested. 272 - PM: Not tested. 273 274 UCB1200: 275 - Audio play: Implemented, not heavily tested. 276 - Audio rec: Implemented, not heavily tested. 277 - Telco audio play: Implemented, not heavily tested. 278 - Telco audio rec: Implemented, not heavily tested. 279 - POTS control: No 280 - Touchscreen: Yes 281 - PM: Not tested. 282 283 Other: 284 - PCMCIA: 285 - LPE: Fully tested, pass. 286 - USB: No 287 - IRDA: 288 - SIR: Fully tested, pass. 289 - FIR: Fully tested, pass. 290 - PM: Not tested. 291 292 Neponset: 293 Serial ports: 294 - COM1,2: TX, RX, CTS, DSR, DCD, RTS, DTR 295 - PM: Not tested. 296 - USB: Implemented, not heavily tested. 297 - PCMCIA: Implemented, not heavily tested. 298 - CF: Implemented, not heavily tested. 299 - PM: Not tested. 300 301 More stuff can be found in the -np (Nicolas Pitre's) tree.
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