[Buildroot] u-boot, setup SD card, BeagleBoard-xM

[Steve Calfee <nospamcalfee@yahoo.com>]

Hi, I'm working on the XM too. see below



----- Original Message ----
> From: Torsten Mohr <tmohr@s.netic.de>
> Hello,
> 
> i wonder if anybody can give me some hints on how to set up an SD  card for
> u-boot for my BeagleBoard-xM.
> 
> The board came with a card with  an Angstrom distro that works fine and fist 
> starts u-boot and then  uImage.
> 
> I've set up a second card using some descriptions i found  googling, but don't 

> really get any success.
> 
> I've set up the second  card to:
> heads: 255
> sectors: 63
> cylinders:  trunc(size/255/63/512)
> 
> ---  1st try:
> 
> The fist partition is  type 0x0c (W95), bootable and formatted using:
> mkfs.msdos -F 32 -n "beagle"  /dev/sdc1
> 
> I created u-boot and a kernel using buildroot-2010.11.
> 
> I  copied a MLO to the SD card, then u-boo.bint and then uImage.
> 
> I created a  user.scr from input.scr:
> mmc init
> setenv console tty0  console=ttyS2,115200n8
> 
> I created user.scr from it  with:
> 
> ../host/usr/bin/mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0  -n lassie 

> -d input.scr user.scr
> 
> I only get weird  output.
>

Try changing only one thing at a time. First get your kernel to boot, then try 
to modify u-boot. I assume you did a typeo above and actually spelled u-boot.bin 
as that and not as you said u-boo.bint?

I have had problems creating a sd card from scratch on ubuntu lucid. gpartd 
doesn't seem to work correctly. disk utility did, and I have heard that fdisk 
will work correctly. Since bootstrapping was too simple, TI added MLO as a first 
stage bootstrap. TI's rom only reads a particular fat format, and must find MLO 
as the first file in the fat. So you must copy MLO first onto the sd. MLO then 
reads the fat and must find the perfectly named u-boot.bin.
 
> 
> ---  2nd try:
> i created an exact copy of the SD card  with the Angstrom distro (that works) 
> using "dd", that i put on the second  SD card.
> 
> I then mounted the first partition as /mnt and deleted the  u-boot.bin that was 
>
> on the card and copied the same file (exactly the same  file) onto the card.
> 
> Booting from this card does not work, the OMAP does  not find a working u-
> boot.bin:
> 
> Texas Instruments X-Loader 1.4.4ss  (Aug 19 2010 - 02:49:27)
> Beagle xM Rev A
> Reading boot sector
> u-boot.bin  not found or blank nand contents - attempting serial boot . . .
> ## Ready for  binary (kermit) download to 0x80008000 at 115200 bps...
> 
> I don't  understand this, i thought that i only need to copy the files onto the 
>
> SD  card.  Is it important where the sectors of each file are on the  card?
> Do i need to run some other tool (like what was necessary for  LILO)?
> 

It is true, all you need is a perfectly formatted sd card. You must have 
forgotten to sync or had a bad copy of u-boot.bin. I have copied from nautilus, 
u-boot.bin onto the micro-sd card.

> Can anybody give me a hint on how to set up an SD card?
> - Where  do i get a MLO?
From your working sd card.

> - Do i need to configure MLO?
Not unless you want to build it (I haven't tried that yet).

> - What do i need to do with  the files?
MLO must be first in the fat directory.

> - Did i miss an important step during setup of the  card?
> 

Please do things one step at a time. Please ask simpler questions. I'll try to 
help.

Regards, Steve