1 Booting U-boot on a MX28 processor
2 ==================================
4 This document describes the MX28 U-Boot port. This document mostly
5 covers topics related to making the module/board bootable.
10 The dollar symbol ($) introduces a snipped of shell code. This shall be typed
11 into the unix command prompt in U-Boot source code root directory.
13 The (=>) introduces a snipped of code that should by typed into U-Boot command
20 2) Compiling U-Boot for a MX28 based board
21 3) Installation of U-Boot for a MX28 based board to SD card
26 To make a MX28 based board bootable, some tools are necessary. The first one
27 is the "elftosb" tool distributed by Freescale Semiconductor. The other one
28 is the "mxsboot" tool found in U-Boot source tree.
30 Firstly, obtain the elftosb archive from the following location:
32 http://foss.doredevelopment.dk/mirrors/imx/elftosb-10.12.01.tar.gz
34 We use a $VER variable here to denote the current version. At the time of
35 writing of this document, that is "10.12.01". To obtain the file from command
39 $ wget http://foss.doredevelopment.dk/mirrors/imx/elftosb-${VER}.tar.gz
43 $ tar xzf elftosb-${VER}.tar.gz
45 Compile the file. We need to manually tell the linker to use also libm:
48 $ make LIBS="-lstdc++ -lm" elftosb
50 Optionally, remove debugging symbols from elftosb:
52 $ strip bld/linux/elftosb
54 Finally, install the "elftosb" binary. The "install" target is missing, so just
55 copy the binary by hand:
57 $ sudo cp bld/linux/elftosb /usr/local/bin/
59 Make sure the "elftosb" binary can be found in your $PATH, in this case this
60 means "/usr/local/bin/" has to be in your $PATH.
62 2) Compiling U-Boot for a MX28 based board
63 -------------------------------------------
65 Compiling the U-Boot for a MX28 board is straightforward and done as compiling U-Boot
66 for any other ARM device. For cross-compiler setup, please refer to ELDK5.0
67 documentation. First, clean up the source code:
71 Next, configure U-Boot for a MX28 based board
73 $ make <mx28_based_board_name>_config
77 1. For building U-boot for Denx M28EVK board:
81 2. For building U-boot for Freescale MX28EVK board:
85 Lastly, compile U-Boot and prepare a "BootStream". The "BootStream" is a special
86 type of file, which the i.MX28 CPU can boot. This is handled by the following
91 HINT: To speed-up the build process, you can add -j<N>, where N is number of
92 compiler instances that'll run in parallel.
94 The code produces "u-boot.sb" file. This file needs to be augmented with a
95 proper header to allow successful boot from SD or NAND. Adding the header is
96 discussed in the following chapters.
98 3) Installation of U-Boot for a MX28 based board to SD card
99 -----------------------------------------------------------
101 To boot a MX28 based board from SD, set the boot mode DIP switches according
102 to i.MX28 manual chapter 12.2.1 (Table 12-2), PORT=SSP0, SD/MMC master on
106 An SD card the i.MX28 CPU can use to boot U-Boot must contain a DOS partition
107 table, which in turn carries a partition of special type and which contains a
108 special header. The rest of partitions in the DOS partition table can be used
111 To prepare such partition, use your favourite partitioning tool. The partition
112 must have the following parameters:
114 * Start sector .......... sector 2048
115 * Partition size ........ at least 1024 kb
116 * Partition type ........ 0x53 (sometimes "OnTrack DM6 Aux3")
118 For example in Linux fdisk, the sequence for a clear card follows. Be sure to
119 run fdisk with the option "-u=sectors" to set units to sectors:
121 * o ..................... create a clear partition table
122 * n ..................... create new partition
123 * p ............. primary partition
124 * 1 ............. first partition
125 * 2048 .......... first sector is 2048
126 * +1M ........... make the partition 1Mb big
127 * t 1 ................... change first partition ID
128 * 53 ............ change the ID to 0x53 (OnTrack DM6 Aux3)
129 * <create other partitions>
130 * w ..................... write partition table to disk
132 The partition layout is ready, next the special partition must be filled with
133 proper contents. The contents is generated by running the following command
136 $ ./tools/mxsboot sd u-boot.sb u-boot.sd
138 The resulting file, "u-boot.sd", shall then be written to the partition. In this
139 case, we assume the first partition of the SD card is /dev/mmcblk0p1:
141 $ dd if=u-boot.sd of=/dev/mmcblk0p1
143 Last step is to insert the card into MX28 based board and boot.
145 NOTE: If the user needs to adjust the start sector, the "mxsboot" tool contains
146 a "-p" switch for that purpose. The "-p" switch takes the sector number as
149 4) Installation of U-Boot for NAND flash
150 -----------------------------------------------
152 To boot a MX28 based board from NAND, set the boot mode DIP switches according to i.MX28
153 manual chapter 12.2.1 (Table 12-2), PORT=GPMI, NAND 1.8 V.
155 There are two possibilities when preparing an image writable to NAND flash.
157 I) The NAND wasn't written at all yet or the BCB is broken
158 ----------------------------------------------------------
159 In this case, both BCB (FCB and DBBT) and firmware needs to be
160 written to NAND. To generate NAND image containing all these,
161 there is a tool called "mxsboot" in the "tools/" directory. The tool
162 is invoked on "u-boot.sb" file from chapter 2):
164 $ ./tools/mxsboot nand u-boot.sb u-boot.nand
166 NOTE: The above invokation works for NAND flash with geometry of
167 2048b per page, 64b OOB data, 128kb erase size. If your chip
168 has a different geometry, please use:
170 -w <size> change page size (default 2048 b)
171 -o <size> change oob size (default 64 b)
172 -e <size> change erase size (default 131072 b)
174 The geometry information can be obtained from running U-Boot
175 on the MX28 board by issuing the "nand info" command.
177 The resulting file, "u-boot.nand" can be written directly to NAND
178 from the U-Boot prompt. To simplify the process, the U-Boot default
179 environment contains script "update_nand_full" to update the system.
181 This script expects a working TFTP server containing the file
182 "u-boot.nand" in it's root directory. This can be changed by
183 adjusting the "update_nand_full_filename" varible.
185 To update the system, run the following in U-Boot prompt:
187 => run update_nand_full
189 In case you would only need to update the bootloader in future,
192 II) The NAND was already written with a good BCB
193 ------------------------------------------------
194 This part applies after the part I) above was done at least once.
196 If part I) above was done correctly already, there is no need to
197 write the FCB and DBBT parts of NAND again. It's possible to upgrade
198 only the bootloader image.
200 To simplify the process of firmware update, the U-Boot default
201 environment contains script "update_nand_firmware" to update only
202 the firmware, without rewriting FCB and DBBT.
204 This script expects a working TFTP server containing the file
205 "u-boot.sb" in it's root directory. This can be changed by
206 adjusting the "update_nand_firmware_filename" varible.
208 To update the system, run the following in U-Boot prompt:
210 => run update_nand_firmware
212 III) Special settings for the update scripts
213 --------------------------------------------
214 There is a slight possibility of the user wanting to adjust the
215 STRIDE and COUNT options of the NAND boot. For description of these,
216 see i.MX28 manual section 12.12.1.2 and 12.12.1.3.
218 The update scripts take this possibility into account. In case the
219 user changes STRIDE by blowing fuses, the user also has to change
220 "update_nand_stride" variable. In case the user changes COUNT by
221 blowing fuses, the user also has to change "update_nand_count"
222 variable for the update scripts to work correctly.
224 In case the user needs to boot a firmware image bigger than 1Mb, the
225 user has to adjust the "update_nand_firmware_maxsz" variable for the
226 update scripts to work properly.