u-boot-imx/board/a3m071/README

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A3M071 board support
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SPL NOR flash support:
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To boot fast into the OS (Linux), this board port integrates the SPL
framework. This means, that a special, stripped-down version of
U-Boot runs in the beginning. In the case of the A3M071 board, this
SPL U-Boot version is less than 16 KiB big. This SPL U-Boot can either
boot the OS (Linux) or a "real", full-blown U-Boot. This detection
on whether to boot Linux or U-Boot is done by using the "boot_os"
environment variable. If "boot_os" is set to "yes", Linux will be
loaded and booted from the SPL U-Boot version. Otherwise, the
full-blown U-Boot version will be loaded and run.

Enabling Linux booting:
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From U-Boot:
=> setenv boot_os yes
=> saveenv

From Linux:
$ fw_setenv boot_os yes

Enabling U-Boot booting:
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From U-Boot:
=> setenv boot_os no
=> saveenv

From Linux:
$ fw_setenv boot_os no


Preparing Linux image(s) for booting from SPL U-Boot:
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To boot the Linux kernel from the SPL, the DT blob (fdt) needs to get
prepard/patched first. U-Boot usually inserts some dynamic values into
the DT binary (blob), e.g. autodetected memory size, MAC addresses,
clocks speeds etc. To generate this patched DT blob, you can use
the following command:

1. Load fdt blob to SDRAM:
=> tftp 1800000 a3m071/a3m071.dtb

2. Set bootargs as desired for Linux booting (e.g. flash_mtd):
=> run mtdargs addip2 addtty

3. Use "fdt" commands to patch the DT blob:
=> fdt addr 1800000
=> fdt boardsetup
=> fdt chosen

4. Display patched DT blob (optional):
=> fdt print

5. Save fdt to NOR flash:
=> erase fc180000 fc07ffff
=> cp.b 1800000 fc180000 10000

All this can be integrated into an environment command:
=> setenv upd_fdt 'tftp 1800000 a3m071/a3m071.dtb;run mtdargs addip addtty; \
	fdt addr 1800000;fdt boardsetup;fdt chosen;erase fc180000 fc07ffff; \
	cp.b 1800000 fc180000 10000'
=> saveenv

After this, only "run upd_fdt" needs to get called to load, patch
and save the DT blob into NOR flash.

Additionally, the Linux kernel image has to be saved uncompressed in
its uImage file (and not gzip compressed). This can be done with this
command:

$ mkimage -A ppc -O linux -T kernel -C none -a 0 -e 0 \
	-n "Linux Kernel Image" -d vmlinux.bin uImage.uncompressed

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Stefan Roese, 2012-08-23