Having trouble booting Pandaboard ES

[Kelvin]

Hi,
Pandaboard ES N00b here. Just got my board couple days ago and am
trying to boot the board up with 5V5A power supply with a Transcent
Class 10 8Gb SD card. Followed the steps from the troubleshoot page
and flashed the validation image to my SD card and only the STATUS 2
LED turns on for a second then turned off. Tried using another image
"Geexbox for Panda" on the same SD card and the STATUS 2 LED blink for
couple seconds then turns off.

Nothing shows up in minicom.

Can someone please tell me what I would be doing wrong? Is it
necessary to have keyboard and mouse connected before booting the
device?

Thanks

[vamshi krishna]

Even I having the same problem, I loaded my SD(class 4, ScanDiskl)
card with L27.12.1-P2-pandroid_v2 images, No console messages on
cutecom, The same SD booted fine on Pandaboard REV A3

Thanks,
Vamshi

[Boudet, Xavier]

Not sure which image you have tried, but I would suggest to try with:

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.10/release/ubuntu-11.10-preinstalled-desktop-armel+omap4.img.gz

And to use the following instruction to flash your SD Card:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/Server/Install?action=show&redirect=ARM%2FOMAPHeadlessInstall

With that one you shall have activities on the minicom, but you will need screen / mouse /keyboard for the installation.

Then you will be able to click on TI Addons button that will provide you a kernel fully supporting Panda ES

Regards, 

Xavier

[Kelvin Law]

I have followed the instruction and now my minicom keep outputting the
following infinity:

U-Boot SPL 2011.09-rc2 (Oct 06 2011 - 17:56:54)
Texas Instruments OMAP4460 ES1.1

Any idea?

[Boudet, Xavier]

Which instruction have you followed exactly?

Are you facing this issue at first boot or after OMAP AddOns installation?

It looks like your boot partition is having a problem.

Can you mount your boot partition and then perform a " cksum"  on all files.

Can you also send the " strings boot.scr" output?

Xavier

[Kelvin Law]

Hi Xavier,

I have used the following commands to flash my sd card on my linux box
(64-bit linux mint 12) and facing the mentioned issue on first boot.

gunzip -c ubuntu-11.10-preinstalled-server-armel+omap4.img.gz | sudo
dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdb
sync

Output from cksum on boot partition:

679479078 293 boot.scr
4051625493 31732 MLO
4008570000 243412 u-boot.bin
4190530309 4298732 uImage
2037667529 5770269 uInitrd

output from strings boot.scr:

Ubuntu boot script
fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uImage
fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 uInitrd
setenv bootargs vram=32M mem=456M@0x80000000 mem=512M@0xA0000000
root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 fixrtc quiet splash
bootm 0x80000000 0x81600000

Appreciate your help.

[GrueMaster]

As the Ubuntu-arm QA guy, I can tell you that 11.10 is not guaranteed
to work on the ES (board shipped after software freeze). I would
recommend 12.04, at least Alpha 2 (Beta 1 release is next week).

If you want the desktop image (no serial console):
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-preinstalled/current/precise-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img.gz
If you want the server image (serial console):
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-preinstalled/current/precise-preinstalled-server-armhf+omap4.img.gz

Note that the armhf versions will be noticeably faster.

Tobin Davis
Ubuntu-Arm QA

On Feb 23, 5:55 am, Kelvin Law <kai....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Xavier,
>
> I have used the following commands to flash my sd card on my linux box
> (64-bit linux mint 12) and facing the mentioned issue on first boot.
>
> gunzip -c ubuntu-11.10-preinstalled-server-armel+omap4.img.gz | sudo
> dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdb
> sync
>
> Output from cksum on boot partition:
>
> 679479078 293 boot.scr
> 4051625493 31732 MLO
> 4008570000 243412 u-boot.bin
> 4190530309 4298732 uImage
> 2037667529 5770269 uInitrd
>
> output from strings boot.scr:
>
> Ubuntu boot script
>     fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uImage
>     fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 uInitrd
>     setenv bootargs vram=32M mem=456M@0x80000000 mem=512M@0xA0000000
> root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 fixrtc quiet splash
>     bootm 0x80000000 0x81600000
>
> Appreciate your help.
>

> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Boudet, Xavier <x-bou...@ti.com> wrote:
> > Which instruction have you followed exactly?
> > Are you facing this issue at first boot or after OMAP AddOns installation?
> > It looks like your boot partition is having a problem.
> > Can you mount your boot partition and then perform a " cksum"  on all files.
> > Can you also send the " strings boot.scr" output?
>
> > Xavier
>

> > On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Kelvin Law <kai....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> I have followed the instruction and now my minicom keep outputting the
> >> following infinity:
>
> >> U-Boot SPL 2011.09-rc2 (Oct 06 2011 - 17:56:54)
> >> Texas Instruments OMAP4460 ES1.1
>
> >> Any idea?
>

> >> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:52 AM, Boudet, Xavier <x-bou...@ti.com> wrote:
> >> > Not sure which image you have tried, but I would suggest to try with:
>

> >> >http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/11.10/release/ubuntu-11.10-preinst...

>
> >> > And to use the following instruction to flash your SD Card:
>

> >> >https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ARM/Server/Install?action=show&redirect=ARM%2...

>
> >> > With that one you shall have activities on the minicom, but you will
> >> > need
> >> > screen / mouse /keyboard for the installation.
> >> > Then you will be able to click on TI Addons button that will provide you
> >> > a
> >> > kernel fully supporting Panda ES
>
> >> > Regards,
>
> >> > Xavier
>

[Danish Raza]

i have the same problem 12.04 is fast on panda board es but the issue is that i have to install ROS on panda board es but still the ROS is only available till 11.10 versions.

[Boudet, Xavier]

Hi Kelvin,

The 11.10 image seems to be correctly flashed.

I tried 12.04 Beta image on my PandaES today and it works fine on my side.

Can you please try it?

If then you need to work with 11.10, you might try to re-use MLO / u-boot from 12.04 image before to boot.

Xavier

[Ashit]

I have brand new Pandaboard ES Rev B1. I tried loading both Ubuntu pre-
installed 11.10 and 12.04 server per the instructions. Both not able
to boot successfully.

Keeps printing on the console and LED2 flashing --

U-Boot SPL 2011.12 (Feb 16 2012 -
18:28:01)
Texas Instruments OMAP4460
ES1.1

U-Boot SPL 2011.12 (Feb 16 2012 -
18:28:01)
Texas Instruments OMAP4460
ES1.1

U-Boot SPL 2011.12 (Feb 16 2012 -
18:28:01)
Texas Instruments OMAP4460
ES1.1
...
...

For 12.04 precise-preinstalled-server-armhf+omap4 - info on 8GB SD
card after flashing

sudo fdisk -ls output --

Disk /dev/sdb: 8168 MB, 8168931328 bytes
128 heads, 32 sectors/track, 3895 cylinders, total 15954944 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 32 147455 73712 c W95 FAT32
(LBA)
/dev/sdb2 147456 3186687 1519616 83 Linux

sdb1 cksum
3118044472 350 boot.scr
568032286 34148 MLO
253574821 248076 u-boot.bin
3492579749 4536680 uImage
4287954720 4016737 uInitrd

strings boot.scr
Ubuntu boot script
fatload mmc 0:1 0x80000000 uImage
fatload mmc 0:1 0x81600000 uInitrd
setenv bootargs vram=32M mem=456M@0x80000000 mem=512M@0xA0000000

root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 fixrtc quiet splash debian-installer/
framebuffer=false console=ttyO2,115200n8
bootm 0x80000000 0x81600000

Any advice to successfully boot will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ashit Patel

On Feb 23, 9:58 pm, GrueMaster <gruemas...@gmail.com> wrote:
> As the Ubuntu-arm QA guy, I can tell you that 11.10 is not guaranteed
> to work on the ES (board shipped after software freeze).  I would
> recommend 12.04, at least Alpha 2 (Beta 1 release is next week).
>

> If you want the desktop image (no serial console):http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-preinstalled/current/precise-preinsta...
> If you want the server image (serial console):http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-preinstalled/current/pr...

> > > It looks like your boot partition ishavinga problem.

> > >> >> "Geexbox forPanda" on the same SD card and the STATUS 2 LED blink for

[Ashit]

I had similar situation (pandaboard ES not progressing boot sequence past U-Boot SPL and TI OMAP4460 ES1.1)  Now problem is resolved once I got new power adapter (5VDC/4A)  from Digi-key. My original power adapter was rated for 2A. With 4A adapter pandaboard ES boot successfully and loaded Ubuntu 11.10.

Ashit Patel

[Subramaniam Appadodharana]

Yes I had the same trouble .... used a 4A charger.... problem solved..

[Kelvin Law]

Hi Subramaniam,

May I know which Pandaboard ES Revision you have?
Mine is B1.

[Subramaniam Appadodharana]

Mine is A3

[Ashit]

Mine is ES Rev. B1 recently purchased.

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2012, Ashit wrote:

> Mine is ES Rev. B1 recently purchased.

what does the phrase "trim your posts" mean to some of you?
seriously.

rday

--

========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA
http://crashcourse.ca

Twitter: http://twitter.com/rpjday
LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
========================================================================

[framstick]

This topic has been a great help to me for several reasons. I learned
the following:

1) desktop ubuntu images don't write anything to serial terminal (this
has cost me DAYS of flashing and reflashing sdcards)
2) older OSs will not boot on my Pandaboard ES
3) I need the 'armhf' for better speed.

Thanks again everybody!

[Joshi, Vikas]

By default Ubuntu image don't write on serial terminal. But you can change the bootargs to see the messages on the terminal.
Read: http://omappedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_on_OMAP_FAQ#I_want_to_see_the_kernel_debug_traces_and_connect_through_a_serial_connection

Vikas

[David Kelley]

On Mar 1, 1:00 pm, framstick <sasku...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...I learned the following:
> 2) older OSs [Ubunutu in thgis posters case] will not boot on my PandaboardES


That would have been a really nice thing to know before Digikey
shipped us a box of them to upgrade the next batch.
After I calm down a bit I will see if others in my group think this is
a deal killer for investment in this product at this time.
Still, I am glad many you are willing to take the effort to advance
such things.

And not only will the desktop image not boot, but the validation image
runs poorly as well (led #2 does not run, drive test seems incorrect)
so watch out for that.