[U-Boot] Using u-boot to update the kernel and root-file system on NAND chip on imx28evk from USB memory stick

[Scott Wood <scottwood@freescale.com>]

On 08/08/2012 04:33 PM, Bill wrote:
> All,
> 
>     I'm needing the ability to upgrade the kernel and root-filesystem on
> the NAND chip on the imx28evk from new files that reside on a USB memory
> stick.  That is I want to partition the NAND (mtd) into 3 sections that
> contain  u-boot, kernel, rootfs.  Then whenever the system is booted,
> u-boot will probe the USB memory stick (using fatls and looking for a 
> kernel file and rootfs file)  If the files exist on the USB memory
> stick, uboot will automatically (first it will verify a CRC/Checksum)
> erase the kernel and rootfs sections on the NAND chip, and then copy the
> new kernel and rootfs from the USB stick to their respective sections in
> the flash chip (I think using fatload)?.  It will never write a new u-boot.
> 
>    I've also seen where u-boot can define the NAND flash partitions
> using the mtdparts command and pass these along to the kernel via
> command line args?
> 
>    Can u-boot write/erase to a nand partition (i.e. /dev/mtd0) instead
> of using absolute memory addresses?

If you use U-Boot's mtdparts support, you can reference partitions by
name (mtdparts name, not Linux device node name) in NAND commands.

-Scott