[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com]

Hi all,

I'm totally new to embedded linux/uboot, but I've been doing embedded work 
for going on 12 years so I'm not a total putz.  We're working on early 
stages of design and I've been asked a couple of questions that I can't 
really answer.  I don't need to know HOW to do these just yet (can figure 
that out later), I just need to know if it's possible to do.  And before 
you ask I am RTFMing, I just don't have a lot of time to come up with 
answers to these questions and they're not jumping out of the FM at me. 
So:

1) Will u-boot support a compact flash device on the local bus of an 
MPC8347 (we would like to get u-boot from a small I2C EEPROM and 
everything else including the kernel from a large compact flash device)?
2) Is it possible to connect to u-boot's "console" from an enet port or 
can it only be accessed from a serial port?  If it can, I presume it can 
then be used to load new versions of u-boot just like the serial port? 
(The reason for this is there may not be a serial port available in the 
final design for the customer to use for field upgrades and we're 
concerned about being able to upgrade u-boot if we need to ship a fix for 
it in the future.)

Thanks in advance.

Bruce Leonard
Schweitzer Engineering Labs
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[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[David Hawkins]

Hi Bruce

I can't answer all your questions as I too am fairly new to this,
but ...

> 1) Will u-boot support a compact flash device on the local bus of an 
> MPC8347 (we would like to get u-boot from a small I2C EEPROM and 
> everything else including the kernel from a large compact flash device)?

Assuming the MPC8347 is much the same as the MPC8349E/EA, I doubt
that you can use U-Boot on I2C EEPROM. The boot process of the
MPC8349E is basically; read reset configuration words source
(pin strapping), read reset configuration words (from local
bus Flash or I2C EEPROM), boot to reset vector. The reset
vector is typically an 8MB memory window on the local bus,
where Flash is usually sitting with U-Boot loaded.

So 'we would like to get u-boot from a small I2C EEPROM' doesn't
seem like a feasible requirement. Of course if you have a
development board that does it this way, I'm happy to be
corrected.

> 2) Is it possible to connect to u-boot's "console" from an enet port or 
> can it only be accessed from a serial port?  If it can, I presume it can 
> then be used to load new versions of u-boot just like the serial port? 
>  (The reason for this is there may not be a serial port available in the 
> final design for the customer to use for field upgrades and we're 
> concerned about being able to upgrade u-boot if we need to ship a fix 
> for it in the future.)

I can't answer the console over ethernet question.

However, I would always try to make the serial port available on
the final design. Eg. take a look in the BDI2000 manual if you
have one, they define a couple of pins on the COP header
for use as a logic level RS232 interface.

You can always hide that serial port inside the box.

Consumer electronics such as the Linksys NSLU2 and WRT54G do
things this way, i.e., logic level serial port and JTAG
header somewhere inside ... nice for Linux hacks later on :)

Dave

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Bruce,

in message <OF796C83C1.CDF473D4-ON882571E9.00730FDD-882571E9.0072B15B@selinc.com> you wrote:
> 
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First, you should learn to configura your mailer correctly.

> Content-Type: text/html;
> 	charset="utf-8"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> 
> DQo8YnI+PGZvbnQgc2l6ZT0yIGZhY2U9InNhbnMtc2VyaWYiPkhpIGFsbCw8L2ZvbnQ+DQo8YnI+
> DQo8YnI+PGZvbnQgc2l6ZT0yIGZhY2U9InNhbnMtc2VyaWYiPkknbSB0b3RhbGx5IG5ldyB0byBl
...

Second, HTML is considered a mortal sin on this list.


> that out later), I just need to know if it's possible to do.  And before 
> you ask I am RTFMing, I just don't have a lot of time to come up with 
> answers to these questions and they're not jumping out of the FM at me. 

In such a situation you should hire an expert instead of  asking  for
free  help, and accompany this with a "pronto pronto" statement. This
is impolite at least.

> 1) Will u-boot support a compact flash device on the local bus of an 
> MPC8347 (we would like to get u-boot from a small I2C EEPROM and 
> everything else including the kernel from a large compact flash device)?

U-Boot can be adapted to load data from a CF card.
You cannot boot U-Boot from an I2C EEPROM.

> 2) Is it possible to connect to u-boot's "console" from an enet port or 

Yes. 

> can it only be accessed from a serial port?  If it can, I presume it can 
> then be used to load new versions of u-boot just like the serial port? 
> (The reason for this is there may not be a serial port available in the 
> final design for the customer to use for field upgrades and we're 
> concerned about being able to upgrade u-boot if we need to ship a fix for 
> it in the future.)

Ii is possible. But you will experience a learning curve. In the end,
you will consider adding a serial port.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
"Just Say No."   - Nancy Reagan
"No."            - Ronald Reagan

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Ben Warren]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 14:07 -0700, Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com wrote:
> 

> 1) Will u-boot support a compact flash device on the local bus of an
> MPC8347 (we would like to get u-boot from a small I2C EEPROM and
> everything else including the kernel from a large compact flash
> device)? 
Compact Flash has been done by others, and in a couple of weeks I'll be
able to share my experiences.  I think you'll need a parallel flash
chip.  Although the 834x can retrieve its HRCW info from an I2C EEPROM,
I don't know of any way to put the bootloader there.  Not to mention
that I2C EEPROMS are typically very small and slow.  You can store your
environment info in the I2C EEPROM, though.
> 2) Is it possible to connect to u-boot's "console" from an enet port
> or can it only be accessed from a serial port?  If it can, I presume
> it can then be used to load new versions of u-boot just like the
> serial port?  (The reason for this is there may not be a serial port
> available in the final design for the customer to use for field
> upgrades and we're concerned about being able to upgrade u-boot if we
> need to ship a fix for it in the future.) 
> 
There may be some tricks that others can share, but I'm not aware of any
telnet or other network login servers that have been ported.  There's no
reason you couldn't upgrade U-boot through Linux (or whatever) if you
use an MTD-supported parallel flash chip.

Before Wolfgang chimes in - careful with the HTML and 'Confidentiality'
junk in your e-mail.  You'll make few friends that way.

cheers,
Ben

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <1158269782.16415.87.camel@saruman.qstreams.net> you wrote:
> 
> I don't know of any way to put the bootloader there.  Not to mention
> that I2C EEPROMS are typically very small and slow.  You can store your
> environment info in the I2C EEPROM, though.

But this is *strongly* discourages. If  possible,  put  it  in  (NOR)
flash, and consider using a redundant environment.

> There may be some tricks that others can share, but I'm not aware of any
> telnet or other network login servers that have been ported.  There's no

Then RTFM: see for example doc/README.NetConsole


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
There's nothing  disgusting  about  it  [the  Companion].  It's  just
another life form, that's all. You get used to those things.
	-- McCoy, "Metamorphosis", stardate 3219.8

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Matthew Millman]

On 9/15/06, Ben Warren <bwarren@qstreams.com> wrote:
> There may be some tricks that others can share, but I'm not aware of any
> telnet or other network login servers that have been ported.  There's no
> reason you couldn't upgrade U-boot through Linux (or whatever) if you
> use an MTD-supported parallel flash chip.

From my poking around I've generally found that while it's there and
powerful: NetConsole  = "Only go there as a last resort"

I've implemented a simple system that works in linux (as above) by
using the MTD 'flashcp' utilty to /dev/mtdXXX, this works very well.

<rant>

As a rule of thumb we're (more or less) designing our hardware around
what U-Boot needs (Which is actually a good set of requirements)
rather than trying to force U-Boot into existing shabby platforms.
IMHO: If you can't do this you should probably be writing your own
bootloader.

I'm also amazed at the amount people from large organisations asking
the same questions that started this thread, We have U-Boot running on
SEVEN different platforms here, all using different CPUs, two
different architectures and different endiannesses, from the time we
started to now I've asked ONE question of this list (which wasn't
answered, and I figured it out anyway). how hard can it be??????????
just read the README and go look at the d**m code!!!!!!

</rant>

(sorry about the HTML)

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Matthew Millman]

sorry..... just one more rant.......

<rant>
One other point while I'm ranting here... I don't have 12 years of
embedded experience under my belt either, in comparison: I am a total
putz, in fact, I only just got out of university!!!!!!! getting U-boot
going (on any platform) was a cinch!
</rant>

On 9/15/06, Matthew Millman <inaxeon@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/15/06, Ben Warren <bwarren@qstreams.com> wrote:
> > There may be some tricks that others can share, but I'm not aware of any
> > telnet or other network login servers that have been ported.  There's no
> > reason you couldn't upgrade U-boot through Linux (or whatever) if you
> > use an MTD-supported parallel flash chip.
>
> From my poking around I've generally found that while it's there and
> powerful: NetConsole  = "Only go there as a last resort"
>
> I've implemented a simple system that works in linux (as above) by
> using the MTD 'flashcp' utilty to /dev/mtdXXX, this works very well.
>
> <rant>
>
> As a rule of thumb we're (more or less) designing our hardware around
> what U-Boot needs (Which is actually a good set of requirements)
> rather than trying to force U-Boot into existing shabby platforms.
> IMHO: If you can't do this you should probably be writing your own
> bootloader.
>
> I'm also amazed at the amount people from large organisations asking
> the same questions that started this thread, We have U-Boot running on
> SEVEN different platforms here, all using different CPUs, two
> different architectures and different endiannesses, from the time we
> started to now I've asked ONE question of this list (which wasn't
> answered, and I figured it out anyway). how hard can it be??????????
> just read the README and go look at the d**m code!!!!!!
>
> </rant>
>
> (sorry about the HTML)
>

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Matthew,

in message <11a6eb590609141534g875672ajc8adca1849a7e79@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
>
...
> SEVEN different platforms here, all using different CPUs, two
> different architectures and different endiannesses, from the time we
> started to now I've asked ONE question of this list (which wasn't
> answered, and I figured it out anyway). how hard can it be??????????

It *was* answered. You asked:

	From: "Matthew Millman" <inaxeon@gmail.com>
	Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 18:30:22 +1200
	Subject: [U-Boot-Users] U-Boot & IPv6
	...
	* As crazy as this may sound... I / we need IPv6 in uboot
	...

and I replied:

	From: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
	Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:18:59 +0200
	Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] U-Boot & IPv6
	...
	So add it...
	...

This may have been not the answer you were looking for, but I *did*
answer your question.


Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
"In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble."
- Alan Perlis

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Matthew Millman]

apoligies....

with regards to that question, that was exactly the answer I was
expecting, and that's exactly what I'm already doing ;)

I was referring to a previous one about data cache on mpc8260 in
relation to PCI - which you did answer, but the answer was
non-technical.

Matt

On 9/15/06, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> wrote:
> Dear Matthew,
>
> in message <11a6eb590609141534g875672ajc8adca1849a7e79@mail.gmail.com> you wrote:
> >
> ...
> > SEVEN different platforms here, all using different CPUs, two
> > different architectures and different endiannesses, from the time we
> > started to now I've asked ONE question of this list (which wasn't
> > answered, and I figured it out anyway). how hard can it be??????????
>
> It *was* answered. You asked:
>
>         From: "Matthew Millman" <inaxeon@gmail.com>
>         Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 18:30:22 +1200
>         Subject: [U-Boot-Users] U-Boot & IPv6
>         ...
>         * As crazy as this may sound... I / we need IPv6 in uboot
>         ...
>
> and I replied:
>
>         From: Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>
>         Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 10:18:59 +0200
>         Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] U-Boot & IPv6
>         ...
>         So add it...
>         ...
>
> This may have been not the answer you were looking for, but I *did*
> answer your question.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Wolfgang Denk
>
> --
> Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
> Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
> "In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble."
> - Alan Perlis
>

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Ben Warren]

Thanks for the rants.  They're very enlightening. 
Clearly you have a future as a diplomat.

Unfortunately, not everyone was born with your
intuitive grasp of all things engineering, and many of
us need a little coaching now and then.  This mailing
list is a tremendously helpful resource, and if nobody
asked questions there would be no progress.  

Please go back to your read-only cave.  

--- Matthew Millman <inaxeon@gmail.com> wrote:

> sorry..... just one more rant.......
> 
> <rant>
> One other point while I'm ranting here... I don't
> have 12 years of
> embedded experience under my belt either, in
> comparison: I am a total
> putz, in fact, I only just got out of
> university!!!!!!! getting U-boot
> going (on any platform) was a cinch!
> </rant>
> 

[U-Boot-Users] Newbie questions

[Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com]

Hi Dave,

David Hawkins <dwh@ovro.caltech.edu> wrote on 09/14/2006 02:17:49 PM:
> Hi Bruce
> 
> I can't answer all your questions as I too am fairly new to this,
> but ...
> 
> > 1) Will u-boot support a compact flash device on the local bus of an 
<snip>
> 
> Assuming the MPC8347 is much the same as the MPC8349E/EA, I doubt
> that you can use U-Boot on I2C EEPROM. The boot process of the
<snip>

Thanks for the answers.  I'm learning as fast as I can, but sometimes the 
HW folks want answers faster than my learning curve.  And yes the 8347 is 
an 8349 with a few parts missing.  Also thanks to everyone who provided 
helpfull and nice answers.  It's that sort of sharing that makes this 
place work.  As for the less than helpfull/nasty answers, well I'm just 
going to ignore you.

I apologize for the HTML.  I though I had it turned off and if I still 
don't I again apologize, please let me know (as I'm sure Wolfgang will 
do).  I don't know much about e-mail protocols, to me it's just a tool to 
facilitate communications, nothing more.  I also apologize for the 
confidentality notices but there's nothing I can do about that.  It's 
corporate policy and it's added automatically to all outgoing e-mails.  If 
it's found to be offensive I just won't post here anymore.

Thanks again to all.

Bruce
----------------------------------
This e-mail may contain SEL confidential or 
legally privileged information.  The opinions 
expressed are not necessarily those of SEL.  
Any unauthorized disclosure, distribution or 
other use is prohibited.  If you received this 
e-mail in error, please notify the sender, 
permanently delete it, and destroy any 
printed copies.