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AW: AW: [microblaze-uclinux] booting uClinux from FLASH
Hi anand,
I think the documentation is just not up to date. I try to help a little
from what I remember see below
> >> Hi all
> >>
> >>
> >> We have a memec spartan 2E (microblaze) board running
> >> uClinux which is directly connected now to the LAN hub with
> >> its own internal IP address.Till now,we were using XMD each
> >> time to download the image on to the SDRAM and then boot from
> >> there.But now we want to use FLASH to boot our image. (I mean
> >> FLASH to store the image,and move it to SDRAM to execute it)
> >>
> >> We have 8MB of FLASH on the P160 extension module(1MB SRAM
> >> also).I have some doubts regarding FLASH :
> >>
> >> 1. How do we program the FLASH chip on the board?Are there
> >> any tools by which we can directly download the image onto
> >> the FLASH?If yes,then which image will we download,image.bin
> >> or image.elf??
You can use the mentioned flashtools to programm the image.bin into
flash. That takes quite some time but it works. For the demo John has
written a simple bootloader that does the same job. Check out the demo
package.
> >> 2. Microblaze as such is designed to start executing from
> >> physical address 0x00000000 on reset.This is mapped to the
> >> internal BRAM.So is this where our bootloader should reside?
The bootloader in the mb_vanilla is placed into blockram. So there is
not really a problem when you copy data from flash into sdram. Also the
startaddress of the kernel is the start address of the sdram. As far as
I remember that is 0x80000000.
> >> 3. What exactly should the bootloader do?I mean,will the
> >> bootloader assume that there is an image already existing in
> >> the FLASH so that it can just issue instructions to move the
> >> image from FLASH to RAM and then start executing it?
A simple bootloader like John has written gives you the oppurtunity to
copy the kernel from flash into sdram and then execute it from sdram.
What John also did, If I remember right, is that you download the
image.bin via xmd, then start the bootloader and simply copy the content
of the sdram into the flash. The next time you power up your system you
can simply use the other way around and copy data back from flash into
sdram and execute it from there.
> >> Otherwise,will the bootloader also burn the image on to the
> >> FLASH and then subsequently move it to RAM?
> >>
> >> I am not very sure about this.Can anybody help me with this?
> >>
> >> Now that we have a fully functional ethernet connection on
> >> board,can we use any net based tool to directly
> >> program/update the FLASH?
A more sophisticasted bootloader (like u-boot) will allow you to boot
the kernel from a ftp or tftp server. That will save you a lot of time
during development. But what we did in the last few weeks was mainly
using xmd to download an image.elf file. Download speed has improved a
lot using mdm.
> >> I have checked the mailing list posts on the website for any
> >> FLASH related information.Though I did find something about
> >> an 'elfloader' and 'u-boot port for Microblaze'..its usage
> >> and availability was not immediately clear.
> >>
> >> Can we use XMD to download the image on to the FLASH?
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance for any information in this regard.
> >>
> >> Cheers
> >>
> >> V.Anand
> >> (www.tenet.res.in)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ****************************************
> >>
> >> -----
> >> Trouble with windows? Re boot....
> >> Trouble with Linux? Be root.... ___________________________
> >> microblaze-uclinux mailing list
> >> microblaze-uclinux@itee.uq.edu.au Project Home Page :
> >http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux
> >Mailing List Archive :
> >http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~listarch/microblaze-uclinux/
> >
> >
> >
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> ****************************************
>
> -----
> Trouble with windows? Re boot....
> Trouble with Linux? Be root....
> ___________________________
> microblaze-uclinux mailing list
> microblaze-uclinux@itee.uq.edu.au Project Home Page :
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~jwilliams/mblaze-uclinux
Mailing List Archive :
http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~listarch/microblaze-uclinux/
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