[vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Yuri Frolov]

Hi,

do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch. u-boot uses is uImage?
Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is the question.

Re: [vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Daniel Golle]

Hi Yuri,

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 02:19:06PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch. u-boot uses is uImage?
> Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is the question.
> 

You got to enable U-Boot's CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ and use the bootz command
in order to boot that. Or change that default to generate FIT or legacy
uImage instead.

Re: [vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Yuri Frolov]

On 06/13/2018 06:35 PM, Daniel Golle wrote:
> Hi Yuri,
> 
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 02:19:06PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch. u-boot uses is uImage?
>> Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is the question.
>>
> 
> You got to enable U-Boot's CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ and use the bootz command
> in order to boot that. Or change that default to generate FIT or legacy
> uImage instead.
> 

bootz_setup is properly defined only for arm (arch/arm/lib/zimage.c); default bootz_setup returns an error.
So, is bootz supposed to work for architectures other than arm?

Re: [vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Paul Burton]

Hi Yuri,

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 07:28:43PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
> On 06/13/2018 06:35 PM, Daniel Golle wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 02:19:06PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
> > > do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch.
> > > u-boot uses is uImage?

Easy options are to use the legacy uImage or FIT as Daniel mentioned.

As an example, when running U-Boot the older MIPS Malta platform
generally uses a legacy uImage whilst the newer MIPS Boston platform
uses a FIT (.itb) image.

> > > Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is
> > > the question.

Please note that, at least when targeting MIPS, vmlinuz.bin is not a
zImage - those are 2 different things. If you build vmlinuz.bin for MIPS
then what you get is a flat binary containing some decompression code
and a compressed version of vmlinux.bin. The file has no special header
as it appears the ARM zImage format does.

> > You got to enable U-Boot's CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ and use the bootz command
> > in order to boot that. Or change that default to generate FIT or legacy
> > uImage instead.
> > 
> 
> bootz_setup is properly defined only for arm (arch/arm/lib/zimage.c);
> default bootz_setup returns an error.
>
> So, is bootz supposed to work for architectures other than arm?

So far as I can see it isn't - it's ARM specific.

But again that's not the same as a MIPS vmlinuz.bin, so I suspect with
that knowledge your question may change.

Thanks,
    Paul

Re: [vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Paul Burton]

Hi Yuri,

On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 07:28:43PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
> On 06/13/2018 06:35 PM, Daniel Golle wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 02:19:06PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
> > > do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch.
> > > u-boot uses is uImage?

Easy options are to use the legacy uImage or FIT as Daniel mentioned.

As an example, when running U-Boot the older MIPS Malta platform
generally uses a legacy uImage whilst the newer MIPS Boston platform
uses a FIT (.itb) image.

> > > Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is
> > > the question.

Please note that, at least when targeting MIPS, vmlinuz.bin is not a
zImage - those are 2 different things. If you build vmlinuz.bin for MIPS
then what you get is a flat binary containing some decompression code
and a compressed version of vmlinux.bin. The file has no special header
as it appears the ARM zImage format does.

> > You got to enable U-Boot's CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ and use the bootz command
> > in order to boot that. Or change that default to generate FIT or legacy
> > uImage instead.
> > 
> 
> bootz_setup is properly defined only for arm (arch/arm/lib/zimage.c);
> default bootz_setup returns an error.
>
> So, is bootz supposed to work for architectures other than arm?

So far as I can see it isn't - it's ARM specific.

But again that's not the same as a MIPS vmlinuz.bin, so I suspect with
that knowledge your question may change.

Thanks,
    Paul

Re: [vmlinuz.bin] Does u-boot support loading vmlinuz[.bin]?

[Yuri Frolov]

Hi, Paul,

On 06/14/2018 12:48 AM, Paul Burton wrote:
> Hi Yuri,
> 
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 07:28:43PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
>> On 06/13/2018 06:35 PM, Daniel Golle wrote:
>>> On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 02:19:06PM +0300, Yuri Frolov wrote:
>>>> do I understand correctly, that the native format for mips arch.
>>>> u-boot uses is uImage?
> 
> Easy options are to use the legacy uImage or FIT as Daniel mentioned.

so it was my suggestion to the engineer who reached me and asked to provide support
for vmlinuz.bin boot in u-boot for p5600-based development board.
Basically, my recomendation was to change somehow the type of kernel built in their
machine-specific yocto *.conf; afaik, yocto/bitbake allows to do that.
Hopefully, KERNEL_IMAGETYPE variable will work for them.

> 
> As an example, when running U-Boot the older MIPS Malta platform
> generally uses a legacy uImage whilst the newer MIPS Boston platform
> uses a FIT (.itb) image.
> 
>>>> Yocto's default for mips is vmlinuz.bin for some reason, here is
>>>> the question.
> 
> Please note that, at least when targeting MIPS, vmlinuz.bin is not a
> zImage - those are 2 different things. If you build vmlinuz.bin for MIPS
> then what you get is a flat binary containing some decompression code
> and a compressed version of vmlinux.bin.

Yeah, I've got this surfing linux build scripts and 'decompression' directory.

> The file has no special header as it appears the ARM zImage format does.

Good to know, thank you. I've tried to find mips-specific header structure
in attempt to set things up as "in arm world", but failed.
So, there is no such header, ok.

> 
>>> You got to enable U-Boot's CONFIG_CMD_BOOTZ and use the bootz command
>>> in order to boot that. Or change that default to generate FIT or legacy
>>> uImage instead.
>>>
>>
>> bootz_setup is properly defined only for arm (arch/arm/lib/zimage.c);
>> default bootz_setup returns an error.
>>
>> So, is bootz supposed to work for architectures other than arm?
> 
> So far as I can see it isn't - it's ARM specific.

Ok, thanks.

Thank you very much,
Yuri