From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from vsmtp2alice.tin.it (vsmtp2alice.tin.it [212.216.176.142]) by ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B87672BC0F for ; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 21:32:02 +1000 (EST) Received: from PortatileLG (131.175.54.146) by vsmtp2alice.tin.it (7.0.027) (authenticated as giuliani@aliceposta.it) id 4141A72400198019 for linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org; Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:26:28 +0200 From: "Luca Giuliani" To: Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:26:15 +0200 Message-ID: <000001c4aace$245a5060$6500a8c0@PortatileLG> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: Linux on Memec Virtex II Pro V4P7 Rev. 3 List-Id: Linux on PowerPC Developers Mail List List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , I'm a newbie of Linux on embedded devices and I tried longly to make Linux work on the embedded PPC405 on the Memec Virtex II Prov V4P7 board WITHOUT P160 module. I'm using the patched 2.4.22 patched by Mind.be, freely available on their FTP site. The boot process always freezes after the "Uncompressing Linux...done" i.e. after the bootloader has given the control to the uncompressed kernel. By making a long step-by-step debugging I found out that the problem was due to a "Machine check" exception happining in various points (yes, not always the same!) in memset when zeroing the BSS in early_init. The only way to make the kernel INITIATE the boot process was to modify the MSR mask (/include/asm-ppc/processor.h) as to disable the Machine Check, but this is not a good idea! The first thing that came to my mind was that there was an error in the hardware design, but it was auto-generated with the "Base platform builder" wizard included in EDK 6.2 and then customized only to meet the requirements of the Mind kernel. Has someone succeeded in booting Linux on this device WITHOUT P160 expansion card? If so I kindly ask you to answer me privately, at least to know how you built the hardware design, which kernel did you use and which are the vital parameters to be set in the kernel. Thanks in advance for your invaluable advice. Luca