Revision as of 14:41, 11 May 2018

Introduction

This page explain how to create a microSD card to boot IGEP boards with software distributions ( yocto, Ubuntu, Debian ...).

Now we can see an image of which are the steps to boot any module.

With a general processor all start with MLO file and U-Boot.img. Also it is the same procedure for Freescale- NXP. If you want to see how to create these files follow this link.

Next step is that once the processor is initialized,call the linux kernel making the execution of your operative system available.

Finally your OS runs and you can initialize the board correctly

General Processors

Inside General processors we can find Texas Instruments

The microsd card must be content at latest 2 partitions.
The first one must be primary partition with the boot flag mark and formated using FAT(16 or 32) file system.
All names used in this partition must be msdos names (applies to OLD OMAP35xx processor).
The processor must load a first program called MLO, this program must reside in the first partition, this program it's also called x-loader or uboot-spl.

The processor when boot ONLY load and execute the MLO program and ignore all the rest it's the X-loader(MLO) the program responsible to load the next programs such kernel or uboot if you use this last one approach.


	Freescale has a different structure

Freescale-NXP Processors

The microsd card must be content at latest 1 partitions.
The primary partition can be formatted with any filesystem that u-boot can mount.
The Processor will load the u-boot.imx it include the SPL and u-boot.

After load this u-boot.imx, u-boot will be ready for boot the kernel.

Therefore, we are going to setup a microSD card with these requirements and install a custom software distribution into it.

Prerequisites

PC with Linux (We use for this how to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS)
MicroSD Card (4 Gbytes - class 4) or bigger ...
Tools such, fdisk, mkfs.ext3, mkfs.vfat, gparted ...
Cross Toolchain included in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS gcc version 4.9.3 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.9.3-13ubuntu2).

ToolChain

Read: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Toolchain

In order to start developing with an IGEP PROCESSOR BOARD we can use a microSD Card to flash our system and boot from it. Most of the cases is the easiest way to boot a board.

The following steps details how to prepare a booteable MicroSD Card

Prepare a SD to boot


	The following steps has been tested using an Ubuntu 16.04

First of all it is important to detect which device is our microSD Card. In order to do that we can follow this instructions in a Linux terminal:

1- Clean the dmesg information:

sudo dmesg -c

2- Insert the microSD Card and show the dmesg information:

dmesg

The result have to be similar to this:

We can see the name of our device in the system: /dev/sdX where X is the character assigned by our system, in this case /dev/sde.

Now we have to ensure that the MicroSD Card is completely clean. We can use the following command to do that:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=1024 count=1024

Where X is the character returned previously by your system, for example, in the previous situation:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sde bs=1024 count=1024

Now we are ready to create the corresponding partitions in our MicroSD Card.

How to partition the MicroSD card

There are several ways to partition a MicroSD Card. In this post we are using the GParted tool that can be installed as:

sudo apt-get install gparted

Other tools as sfdisk and mkfs are useful too.

It is important to difference between a MicroSD Card for a NXP processor and the other cases. The process of partition is similar but, in the case of NXP chips, there exists some differences.

General case process:

GENERAL CASE	NXP PROCESSORS
1- Select the corresponding device	1- Select the corresponding device

2- Create a partition table	2- Create a partition table

3- Create a FAT32 boot partition	3- Create a FAT32 boot partition leaving 8MB before
We will configure the partition as: Free Space Preceding: 1MB Primary Partition File system/ Format: FAT32 Size: 100 MB Label: Boot Align to: cylinder	We will configure the partition as: Free Space Preceding: 8MB Primary Partition File system/ Format: FAT32 Size: 100 MB Label: Boot Align to: cylinder
4- Create a ext4 rootfs partition	4- Create a ext4 rootfs partition
7- Check the results are similar to the followings:
5- Apply changes	5- Apply changes

6- Set boot flag to boot partition	6- Set boot flag to boot partition

7- Check the results are similar to the followings:	7- Check the results are similar to the followings:

By doing that we will have ready the microSD Card in order to copy our files.

SFDISK

Another method is to use the following commands in order to prepare the microSD card. These commands will perform the same operations that in the previous part.

GENERAL CASE	NXP PROCESSORS
sudo sfdisk /dev/<your_microsd> <<EOF label: dos 63,144522,0x0C,* 160650,,,- EOF	sudo sfdisk /dev/<your_microsd> <<EOF label: dos 16065,128520,0x0C,* 144585,,,- EOF
sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/<your_microsd> -n boot	sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/<your_microsd> -n boot
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/<your_microsd> -L rootfs	sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/<your_microsd> -L rootfs
For example:	For example:
sudo sfdisk /dev/sdc <<EOF label: dos 63,144522,0x0C,* 160650,,,- EOF sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdc -n boot sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc -L rootfs	sudo sfdisk /dev/sdc <<EOF label: dos 16065,128520,0x0C,* 144585,,,- EOF sudo mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdc -n boot sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdc -L rootfs

How to copy everything into the MicroSD Card

Once the MicroSD is completely prepared, it is time to copy the u-boot, kernel and root dile system to the MicroSD Card.

U-Boot

General processors

After build or download the MLO and u-boot you should follow the next steps:

Copy MLO and u-boot.img to primary into the root folder of the boot partition

cp <<strong>your_MLO</strong>> /media/<your_user>/boot<br>cp <<strong>your_u-boot.img</strong>> /media/<your_user>/boot

You can follow this link if you want build the MLO and u-boot

Freescale processors

Copy u-boot.imx using dd before primary partition in raw mode as

sudo dd if=<<strong>your_u-boot.imx</strong>> of=/dev/<your_microSD> bs=512 seek=2

You can follow this link you want build the u-boot.imx

Root file System

The root file system have to be extracted into the root folder of the rootfs partition.

Kernel

Kernel files, zImage and .dtb, can be copied into the root folder of the boot partition

Kernel Modules can have to be copied using the command indicated in the kernel compilation post into the rootfs partition.

@@ Line 205: / Line 205: @@
 After build or download the MLO and u-boot you should follow the next steps:
-* Copy MLO and u-boot.img to primary boot partition
+* Copy MLO and u-boot.img to primary into the ''root folder'' of the '''boot partition'''
-<pre>$ cp MLO u-boot.img /media/user/boot
+<pre>cp <<strong>your_MLO</strong>> /media/<your_user>/boot<br>cp <<strong>your_u-boot.img</strong>> /media/<your_user>/boot
 </pre>
 You can follow this [[How to prepare a bootable MicroSD Card|link]] if you want build the MLO and u-boot
@@ Line 216: / Line 216: @@
 * Copy u-boot.imx using dd before primary partition in raw mode as
-<pre>sudo dd if=/home/user/u-boot-imx/u-boot.imx of=/dev/sde bs=512 seek=2
+<pre>sudo dd if=<<strong>your_u-boot.imx</strong>> of=/dev/<your_microSD> bs=512 seek=2
 </pre>
-<u>Where /dev/sde is your microsd card</u>
 You can follow this [[How to prepare a bootable MicroSD Card|link]] you want build the u-boot.imx
@@ Line 226: / Line 223: @@
 ==Root file System==
-In this tutorial we will use the [http://downloads.isee.biz/pub/files/linaro/releases/linaro-m-headless-tar-20101108-2.tar.gz linaro headless] (soft floating) image as rootfs but you can use your favorite rootfs also.
+The root file system have to be extracted into the'' root folder''  of the '''rootfs''' partition.
-{| width="auto" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" border="0" align="center"
-|-
-||
-| style="text-align: center;"|
-|-
-| scope="row"|
-||Here there are many articles about how to get '''many other [index.php/Category:Software_distributions software distributions]'''.
-|}
-<br /> Here you've the [http://downloads.isee.biz/pub/files/linaro/releases/linaro-11.09-nano-n-tar-20110929-0.tar.gz linaro nano 11.09] (soft floating) available for download from the ISEE server.
-Notes: You must build your programs with the hard floating if your rootfs is build with it.
-Notes: IGEPv5 must use Hard floating Rootfs
-===<span id="Create_the_Rootfs_mount_point" class="mw-headline">Create the Rootfs mount point</span>===
-Go to /media directory and create one sub-folder called "binary"
-<pre>cd /media
-sudo mkdir binary
-</pre>
-===<span id="Mount_the_RootFS_partition" class="mw-headline">Mount the RootFS partition</span>===
-Mount the rootfs partition using the 'binary' directory
-<pre>$ media > sudo mount /dev/mmcblkp2 /media/binary
-</pre>
-===<span id="Untar_the_rootfs_package" class="mw-headline">Untar the rootfs package</span>===
-Copy "linaro-m-headless-tar-20101108-2.tar.gz" file inside the /media directory and untar the file
-<pre>$ media > sudo tar xvfz linaro-m-headless-tar-20101108-2.tar.gz</pre>
-<br /> Now you should see inside your rootfs partition a similar structure like this.
-<div class="center"><div class="thumb tnone"><div class="thumbinner" style="width: 302px;"><div class="thumbcaption"><div class="magnify"></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-===<span id="Install_the_kernel_modules" class="mw-headline">Install the kernel modules</span>===
-Now you should install your kernel modules inside your root file system.
-<pre>$ media > cd /home/jdoe/linux-omap-2.6
-$ /home/jdoe/linux-omap-2.6> sudo make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-gnueabi- modules_install INSTALL_MOD_PATH=/media/binary
-</pre>
-Alternatively if you downloaded the binary package uncompress it inside the directory /media/binary
-===<span id="Install_the_kernel_Image" class="mw-headline">Install the kernel Image</span>===
-Just copy the zImage inside your boot partition, remember before that you must mount your mmc boot partition.
-<pre>$ /home/jdoe/linux-omap-2.6> sudo cp arch/arm/boot/zImage /media/boot/
-if you're using dtb kernel as 3.8.y you must copy the dtb too.
-$ /home/jdoe/linuz-omap-2.6> sudo cp arch/arm/boot/dtbs/omap5-igep0050.dtb /media/boot
-</pre>
-After that you can unmount the boot & rootfs partitions.
-Now we're ready for test our new microsd card
-==Kernel & Modules==
-You can follow this other howto about [index.php/The_Linux_kernel how compile and install the Linux Kernel].
-=<span id="Test_your_new_MicroSD" class="mw-headline">Test your new MicroSD</span>=
-You can test your new microSD card with a Serial client such as PuTTy. [index.php/Using_serial_debug_port_to_communicate Here] is an explanation about how to configure it.
-(Note that speed should be configured to 115200 bauds).
+==Kernel==
+Kernel files, '''zImage '''and''' .dtb''', can be copied into the'' root folder'' of the''' boot partition'''
-If you already have configured it or you are using another Serial client and you have connected the Serial cable to the IGEPv2 board, then you are ready to test your microSD.
+'''Kernel Modules '''can have to be copied using the command indicated in the kernel compilation [[Linux Kernel 4.9.y|post]] into the '''rootfs partition'''.
-Insert the microSD in your IGEPv2 board and power up the board.

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