UBOOT DENX loader - revert

[jede]

I have just bought my first SheevaPlug and I'm attempting to load up the standard PlugPBX image on SD.

Step 1 was to upgrade the UBOOT code for which I followed the instructions on http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/uboot-upgrade.html as recommended on the PlugPBX setup page. These instructions provide details on how to upgrade from Marvel provided UBOOT (3.4.x) to what is described as the DENX variety of UBOOT.

I followed these instructions and now am runinng U-Boot 2011.03 (Apr 26 2011 - 21:50:07).

Once I completed this step I started hiting issues with the subsequent PlugPBX build steps. For example the multi boot setup fails as it does not recognize the mmcinit command. It only recognizes 'mmc init'

setenv bootcmd_mmc 'mmcinit; ext2load mmc 0 0x0800000 /uInitrd; ext2load mmc 0 0x400000 /uImage'

I fixed this by using 'mmc init' so the SD card does now boot, but I don't get any login prompt after the kernal boot completes nor can I reach the plug via HHTTP/SSH/ping. Here's the boot sequence below:

Marvell>> boot
SDHC found. Card desciption is:
Manufacturer:       0x02, OEM "TM"
Product name:       "SD04G", revision 6.2
Serial number:      2998671641
Manufacturing date: 7/2010
CRC:                0x00, b0 = 0
mmc1 is available
Loading file "/uInitrd" from mmc device 0:1 (xxa1)
4294158 bytes read
Loading file "/uImage" from mmc device 0:1 (xxa1)
1811960 bytes read
## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00400000 ...
   Image Name:   Debian kernel
   Image Type:   ARM Linux Kernel Image (uncompressed)
   Data Size:    1811896 Bytes = 1.7 MiB
   Load Address: 00008000
   Entry Point:  00008000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
## Loading init Ramdisk from Legacy Image at 00800000 ...
   Image Name:   Debian ramdisk
   Image Type:   ARM Linux RAMDisk Image (gzip compressed)
   Data Size:    4294094 Bytes = 4.1 MiB
   Load Address: 00000000
   Entry Point:  00000000
   Verifying Checksum ... OK
   Loading Kernel Image ... OK
OK
Using machid 0xa76 from environment

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.


So, I am assuming my issue here is I should not have upgraded to the DENX variety of UBOOT and should have used a 3.4.x version (which I have since found copies of)?

If this is my issue, how do I move from DENX UBOOT variety to the 3.4.x UBOOT variety? I have tried tftpboot (bubt doesn't exist in this variety) but the uboot-3.4.x.bin file download never proceeds beyond the first TFTP packet being sent to the plug i.e. the plug doesn't seem to like the TFTP download.

Can anybody point me in the right direction pls?

Thanks

Jed

[PlugPBX Admin]

Sorry, I've not touched this variety of bootloader yet. I've posted older copies of it on downloads.plugpbx.org.

There are various tools to reflash and reload things via JTAG worse case, many easy to use tools, all documented on places like plugcomputer.org's forums and wiki. I'd suggest looking around there.

That being said, if you determine the correct parameters with this newer variety of bootloader (DENX UBOOT) please do follow up, and I'll ensure the pages are updated accordingly.

[jede]

Can I tell from the output whether the OS is booting properly or not? I'm assuming it is failing as I don't get a login prompt after the 'booting the kernel' message.

Could I have misconfigured the variables so the console is not in use?

As this is my first time through with this, I'm still learning what is to be expected and what is an error.

I am assuming a I need to change UBOOT versions, but maybe this version is fixable if I get the right variables in place. Tricky to know what to look for when you are just starting out

Jed

[PlugPBX Admin]

Can I tell from the output whether the OS is booting properly or not? I'm assuming it is failing as I don't get a login prompt after the 'booting the kernel' message.

Could I have misconfigured the variables so the console is not in use?

As this is my first time through with this, I'm still learning what is to be expected and what is an error.

I am assuming a I need to change UBOOT versions, but maybe this version is fixable if I get the right variables in place. Tricky to know what to look for when you are just starting out

Jed

It can be tricky. It sure was for me 2 years ago. That being said, hitup the plugcomputer.org forums and a few google searches, I bet the answer is well laid out already!

[jede]

Well I googled lots but didn't come up with the answer. I have however solved the issue by downgrading the DENX uboot to the Marvel version 3.4.19 and now I have managed to get the SD card to boot correctly 

To revert wasn't totally straight forward as the tftpboot command would not load the Marvel uboot binary no matter what I did. So, I loaded the u-boot.bin (3.4.19) onto the SD card via SCP so it was available for me to copy from the uboot prompt. Here's the steps I went through:

1) Boot into NAND based Linux
2) Mount the SD card (mkdir /mnt/sdcard; mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sdcard)
3) scp the uboot binary onto the SD card /mnt/sdcard directory
4) Restart the Sheeva and drop into uboot mode
5) Copy the uboot file into memory (ext2load mmc 0:2  0x0800000 u-boot.bin)
6) Clear out the old uboot binary (nand erase 0x0 0x80000)
7) copy the new binary from memory into NAND (nand write 0x0800000 0x0 0x80000) - ensure the memory copy is long enough for the uboot binary
reboot the plug

This downgraded me to 3.4.19 ok. After some env tweaks I got the standard plugpbx build up and running

At least I know it's ok to switch uboot versions easy enough now so this can always be revisited to use the later, and probably better, DENX uboot versions.

I do now hit the issue described here in which I get random junk characters in the console and the console isn't usable, but ssh works fine. I guess this may be fixed with your newer build which I could also try once I have the core system up and running.

http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=2173.0

It may be worth noting on the build pages that users should use the Marvel version of the uboot code and not just follow the hyperlink you provided verbatum!

Thanks for the comments and the great info on the site,

Jed

[PlugPBX Admin]

Well I googled lots but didn't come up with the answer. I have however solved the issue by downgrading the DENX uboot to the Marvel version 3.4.19 and now I have managed to get the SD card to boot correctly 

To revert wasn't totally straight forward as the tftpboot command would not load the Marvel uboot binary no matter what I did. So, I loaded the u-boot.bin (3.4.19) onto the SD card via SCP so it was available for me to copy from the uboot prompt. Here's the steps I went through:

1) Boot into NAND based Linux
2) Mount the SD card (mkdir /mnt/sdcard; mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/sdcard)
3) scp the uboot binary onto the SD card /mnt/sdcard directory
4) Restart the Sheeva and drop into uboot mode
5) Copy the uboot file into memory (ext2load mmc 0:2  0x0800000 u-boot.bin)
6) Clear out the old uboot binary (nand erase 0x0 0x80000)
7) copy the new binary from memory into NAND (nand write 0x0800000 0x0 0x80000) - ensure the memory copy is long enough for the uboot binary
reboot the plug

This downgraded me to 3.4.19 ok. After some env tweaks I got the standard plugpbx build up and running

At least I know it's ok to switch uboot versions easy enough now so this can always be revisited to use the later, and probably better, DENX uboot versions.

I do now hit the issue described here in which I get random junk characters in the console and the console isn't usable, but ssh works fine. I guess this may be fixed with your newer build which I could also try once I have the core system up and running.

http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php?topic=2173.0

It may be worth noting on the build pages that users should use the Marvel version of the uboot code and not just follow the hyperlink you provided verbatum!

Thanks for the comments and the great info on the site,

Jed

Well I guess stuff is changing out there all the time, thanks for the info. I had a bad feeling about stuff like this, so I was sure to copy an old uboot bin from the .19 days on the downloads site for just such emergencies