Re: My (per)version of 8xxrom

Re: My (per)version of 8xxrom

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <BE1C564723B3D21191FD0000F840E39801D81564@rfcmx2.rfc.comm.harris.com> you wrote:
>
> I am using 8xxrom on one of our modem boards, to start Linux.
> I have made several little changes which seemed to be required.

Well, IMHO this code needs more than just a few little changes :-(

> Some of the changes are to support this specific board.
> Others are to allow booting zImage.initrd as an ELF image.
> Also I have added a "GO <address>" command to just jump to an address and
> go.
> Finally, I added an initial timeout to the serial input, so 8xxrom will run
> a default command if left unattended.

Thanks for that.

> I started with 8xxrom-0.3.0.  I heard about patches from Duncan, and I may
> have added them, but I'm not sure.  Since the compressed tar is small, the
> entire thing is attached.  I hope this is helpful for someone.

It is helpful to me. I will  try  to  merge  all  patches  that  I've
collected so far.

> Is there somewhere else I should deliver this?  As far as I know, the
> sourceforge home for 8xxrom hasn't really opened yet.

Yepp, Raphael has no time to care about this. I  met  him  yesterday,
and  we  agreed  to shift responsibilities. I received a message from
him today, that he assigned me and Magnus Damm (?) as  administrators
for the sourceforge tree.

That's correct, Raphael, isn't it?


I will try to coordinate changes a bit, and maybe start a re-write of
some parts of the code. I might have an engineer working on  this  by
mid-July to pick up what we have by then. My current intentions are:

* Make 8xxrom run on the TQM8xxL modules (99% of that are done)
* Add network boot using TFTP / BOOTP (Duncan Palmer is working on
  that, too)
* Add booting from PCMCIA / directly attached ATA disks (not working
  yet on the TQM8xxL)
* Add FLASH driver so that you can use the monitor to load an image
  over the network and write it to FLASH;
* Add some features needed for safe field upgradability (automatic
  selection between two or more boot images)

The list represents more or less the priorities as I see them at  the
moment.

Comments welcome, volunteers even more :-)

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
Generally speaking, there are other ways to accomplish whatever it is
that you think you need ...                               - Doug Gwyn

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Re: My (per)version of 8xxrom

[Murray Jensen]

On Wed, 07 Jun 2000 21:54:32 +0200, Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de> writes:
>I will try to coordinate changes a bit, and maybe start a re-write of
>some parts of the code. I might have an engineer working on  this  by
>mid-July to pick up what we have by then. My current intentions are:
>
>* Make 8xxrom run on the TQM8xxL modules (99% of that are done)
>* Add network boot using TFTP / BOOTP (Duncan Palmer is working on
>  that, too)
>* Add booting from PCMCIA / directly attached ATA disks (not working
>  yet on the TQM8xxL)
>* Add FLASH driver so that you can use the monitor to load an image
>  over the network and write it to FLASH;
>* Add some features needed for safe field upgradability (automatic
>  selection between two or more boot images)
>
>The list represents more or less the priorities as I see them at  the
>moment.
>
>Comments welcome, volunteers even more :-)
>
>Wolfgang Denk

Hi Wolfgang, I have taken the GDB stubs configuration of eCos (embedded
Cygnus operating system(?)) and built a ROM monitor on top which supports
flash, serial and lcd drivers for my board (a Cogent CMA286-60 (MPC860) with a
CMA102 motherboard - supported already by eCos), and has commands to download
via serial port using GDB protocol, program flash from an image in memory,
and boot an image that resides in flash. I don't have an ethernet driver,
because my cpu board doesn't have the appropriate hardware support (I would
need an external physical interface), but the effort might be small to add
this, esp. if code were re-used from elsewhere and grafted in (I will be
doing it at some stage, unless I can find something better - I'm not sure
8xxrom fits the bill, but I will watch it from now on - having only just
discovered it).

So if your board is supported by eCos (not many boards are - I bought this
board specifically because eCos supported it, as I was going to use eCos,
but it was too primitive for my liking so I am now using RT-Linux/PPC),
it might be a good point to start. I don't like re-inventing the wheel,
which is why I used eCos as a base for my EPROM boot code.

I call it ELILO :-) (eCos linux loader). You are welcome to it, but first
check out: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/ecos/. Hope this helps. Cheers!
								Murray...
--
Murray Jensen, CSIRO Manufacturing Sci & Tech,         Phone: +61 3 9662 7763
Locked Bag No. 9, Preston, Vic, 3072, Australia.         Fax: +61 3 9662 7853
Internet: Murray.Jensen@cmst.csiro.au  (old address was mjj@mlb.dmt.csiro.au)


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