SATA boot

[Dmitriy Beykun]

Hello,

I was trying to boot Wandboard from SATA and stumbled upon this issue: why in EDM modules design there are no default bootdevice selector like on SABRE platform reference design?

Setting resistor bootmatrix hardcorely to SD0 as default device made pure SATA boot impossible. This can be really neat feature that other SoC's have already - OMAP5 and exynos5xxx boot from SATA, but this decision just killed it.

Hope new revision could include a little switch for setting default bootdevice. For now I use SD card to load initial stuff like u-boot/kernel and rootfs is at SATA, works somewhat faster than SD card rootfs.

Best Regards,

Dmitriy Beykun

[Wand Board]

Hi.

All the booting configuration pins are on the module with resistor options. You can simply remove/add resistors to change any bootorder you wish/want.

[Dmitriy B.]

Yes, I know, point was that it is too hardcore to solder 0203/0603 for a "standard user" :)

Mounting a simple SMT switch on the EDM module will not get your BOM cost to the sky and will get you an option for people without soldering irons.

I will test pure SATA boot on my Wandboard Dual soon, might post a simple instructions what to solder out/in to switch boot devices priority.

Best Regards,

Dmitriy Beykun

2013/7/13 Wand Board <wand...@gmail.com>

Hi.

All the booting configuration pins are on the module with resistor options. You can simply remove/add resistors to change any bootorder you wish/want.

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[Martin Wetterstedt]

Can you post a guide on how to boot from SATA on the wandboard quad? Also, how would you put the ubuntu image onto the SSD? Would be gratly appreciated!!

[Maxim Podbereznyy]

Guys, you still can boot u-boot from a super slow sd card and then mount a rootfs from a any type of sata devices. Initial boot sequence is performed only once and then the sd card is never touched.

For example my sata drive is /dev/sda1 in linux. In u-boot args you point to this partition instead of the default one

Be creative! Who cares about soldering resistors? :)

02.08.2013 22:56 пользователь "Martin Wetterstedt" <martin.we...@gmail.com> написал:

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[Martin Wetterstedt]

I have no experience of u-boot, is there a quick guide how to change the u-boot args available? Thanks for your help!!

[Maxim Podbereznyy]

printenv
setenv

Change uEnv.txt at a sd card

03.08.2013 22:14 пользователь "Martin Wetterstedt" <martin.we...@gmail.com> написал:

I have no experience of u-boot, is there a quick guide how to change the u-boot args available? Thanks for your help!!

--

[Dmitriy B.]

2013/8/3 Maxim Podbereznyy <lisa...@gmail.com>

Guys, you still can boot u-boot from a super slow sd card and then mount a rootfs from a any type of sata devices. Initial boot sequence is performed only once and then the sd card is never touched.)

Read first post carefully, my board right now works like that. It is not a good decision, but it works.

Be creative! Who cares about soldering resistors? :)

Using ugly workaround when CPU actually supports SATA boot - yeah, very creative :) Not to mention that "standard" user will have problems figuring out U-Boot env and preparing the setup. Placing a little switch that will give you a function of deciding what you want to have as first boot device is a right decision and, in fact, in the SABRE boards this switch is present.

[Maxim Podbereznyy]

I can't agree with you that a hw solution is simpler than just fixing the uEnv file. Anyway you have to change the uEnv file to boot the board, don't you?

You ask to place a switch, another asks to place pcie, a third one needs a mega option when nobody needs it. Do you understand that any hw option costs money? If you are a fan of hw soltuions then design your own board. Boot pins are available, just add a switch

03.08.2013 22:34 пользователь "Dmitriy B." <rzk...@gmail.com> написал:

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[Martin Wetterstedt]

Thanks, but can you clarify? Where is the uEnv.txt file? Can't find it on the root partition and my SD-card only has 2 partitions, the root and the swap partition (using ubuntu 12.04 image). Sorry, I am quite new to this.

2013/8/3 Maxim Podbereznyy <lisa...@gmail.com>

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[Maxim Podbereznyy]

Let me guess: /boot

03.08.2013 22:58 пользователь "Martin Wetterstedt" <mar...@wetterstedt.se> написал:

[Dmitriy B.]

2013/8/3 Maxim Podbereznyy <lisa...@gmail.com>

I can't agree with you that a hw solution is simpler than just fixing the uEnv file.

I cant get why you stay for TechNexion so high, Wandboard is far from perfection right now. Current hw has atleast this as possible next revision feature and bluetooth SCO dead. Dont forget that there can be other hw issues that might need next revision of PCB (remember those guys with HDMI problems?), and my post is entirely about "please add this, if you will have next revision, why you dont compare your work with SABRE reference design?", and not about "add this right now!!!!!!!!111111111oneone". 

Please, read carefully.

Anyway you have to change the uEnv file to boot the board, don't you?

No one will do that, people want to have an image that they can dd to somewhere and boot it. This is a consumer product, people want everything easy. As I said, you can workaround this, but workarounds were never the answer. 

Surely you can just prepare two images for both SATA and SD disks, also, Freescale MFG can come handy.

You ask to place a switch, another asks to place pcie,

Switch is +1 SMT part with cost of $1 in values in which TechNexion produces boards. Examples:

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ADF02ST04/ADF02ST04-ND/1202189

http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/CAS-D20TA/CASD20JTR-ND/341665

PCI-e is already in the works by somebody around here doing custom carrier board and if you cant wait - there's boundarydevices adapter for Nitrogen boards that can be soldered.

Boot pins are available, just add a switch

I believe that these pins are not available on the EDM connector because i.MX6 uses bootmatrix of resistors that are placed on the EDM module itself. I might be wrong, though, if you know that needed bootmatrix pins are exposed to EDM connector - please share your experience, instead of saying "thats wrong, go live with what you have" - that is totally not an embedded engineer approach to things.

[Martin Wild]

Hi,

to boot from HDD try this directly from your running Wandboard.

1. Get or prepare a SDcard with the R.Nelson (2 partition) layout where the Kernel (zImage) is stored as file and uEnv.txt can be used.
   http://eewiki.net/display/linuxonarm/Wandboard
   Put the original rootfs-tar archive, and the kernels modules .tar somewhere on the card.

2. Boot with this Card.

3. create a Primary partition on your Hdd that will contain your rootfs and format it with ext4 (sudo fdisk /dev/sda , mkfs.ext4 )
   ->/dev/sda1

4. repeat steps "copy Root File System" and "Copy Kernel Files" from the tutorial on your harddisk-root-parition with the files
    you stored on your card.

5. mount and create uEnv.txt on the first partition of your SDcard (mount /dev/mmcblkp01 /mnt/)  and paste this:

###set root###

root=/dev/sda1 rootwait panic=10

###set resolution (optional)###

video=mxcfb0:dev=hdmi,1280x720@60,if=RGB24


6. Check /etc/fstab on your hdd for wrong entries, and maybe correct them .

   # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
/dev/root      /               ext4    noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

7. Reboot and look what happens


Regards, Martin

[Martin Wetterstedt]

Excellent, thanks for the instructions! I have not thought this through, but it is possible to make a genereic "boot" image for SD cards that would work with for example the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS image (http://wandboard.org/images/downloads/wandboard-quad-ubuntu-12.04-20130708.zip)? . This would make it easier for beginners (like me).

[ARM Fan]

Am Sonntag, 4. August 2013 09:23:34 UTC+2 schrieb Martin Wetterstedt:

Excellent, thanks for the instructions! I have not thought this through, but it is possible to make a genereic "boot" image for SD cards that would work with for example the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS image (http://wandboard.org/images/downloads/wandboard-quad-ubuntu-12.04-20130708.zip)? . This would make it easier for beginners (like me).

 I would appreciate this too. It already took me some days to even figure out the standard image has no uEnv.txt as this is an extension.

People (including me) get confused if they start with the standard image available and the so many things in forum refer to another image / method. I would like to help to make this more clearly visible with the wiki but I have to get more knowledge on the whole subject as there are so many terms, variants.

[leslie....@gmail.com]

I would definitely warm my iron up and give the a boundarydevices adapter a go if we can find the location of the boot selector pads.

I found the following post in another thread re: pci-e pads

On Thursday, April 25, 2013 12:31:14 PM UTC-4, m.c.s...@freenet.de wrote:Hi Mike,

IMX6 PCIe signals ("PCIE0_*") on EDM module (see p 17 user guide) are connected via 100nF caps C206...C209 to EDM connector pins 91,93 (TX) and pins 97,99 (RX).
The Wandboard  extension PCB shows another 100nF caps (?) before  the signals end up on testpoints TP139..TP142; looks like you have to add some twisted cables on your own... :-).

Cheers,
Michael

[cannonfodder]

Hi Martin,

I have been running the Ubuntu 12.04 image from wandboard.org off of a microSD card (class 10) and I am finding it painfully slow...

I bought a a TechNexion EDM!-FAIRY carrier board and an SSD with the intention of running the OS off of the SSD instead of a microSD card.

I followed your instructions to the best of my ability but I have not managed to get the OS to run from my SATA device as expected/desired...

From my microSD card with Ubuntu 12.04 from wandboard.org, I created a microSD card with Debian 7 root file system and the kernel from the Wandboard tree according to the instructions on Robert Nelson's armonlinux article. This was necessary as I did not otherwise have a rootfs, kernel image, kernel modules, or uEnv.txt to use. All of these were saved on one of the SSDs 8 partitions, one reserved for access to general data.

I also used my microSD card with Ubuntu 12.04 from wandboard.org, instead of performing steps 3-6 from the card I made in step 1 as instructed in step 2.

I did not think that it mattered from where these steps were performed, as long as the required data was copied correctly over to the SSD and the microSD card that would be used as a boot device.

Unfortunately, I wasn't 100% sure about where to copy what. This is what I ended up doing:

1. On the first partition of the SSD I created a folder named "rootfs" into which I untarred the Debian root file system and kernel modules.

2. I also created a folder named "boot" on the first partition of the SSD and I copied the kernel (zImage) into it.

3. On the microSD card I created following Robert Nelson's instructions, I modified the existing uEnv.txt file on the first partition, the partition labelled "boot", as per your instructions (step 5).

4. I followed your step 6.

I then powered down the Wandboard Quad and swapped the microSD cards: I took the microSD card with the wandboard.org Ubuntu 12.04 image out of the EDM-IMX6 microSD slot and put the card I created per Robert Nelson's instructions in its place and powered the Wandboard Quad back up.

Where did I go wrong? I thought all I needed was to have a uEnv.txt file on a microSD card point to a rootfs on a SATA device. I have a kernel image on both the microSD card and the SATA device so I figured that can't be the problem.

Thanks in advance

[Max]

A boot log would be great

Отправлено с iPad

17 окт. 2013 г., в 5:29, cannonfodder <cannon4...@gmail.com> написал(а):

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[cannonfodder]

What's the best way to get a boot log?

[Robert Nelson]

On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 10:14 AM, cannonfodder <cannon4...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What's the best way to get a boot log?

cutecom/gtkterm can all log serial input...

Regards,

--
Robert Nelson
http://www.rcn-ee.com/

[cannonfodder]

Is there another avenue I can pursue troubleshooting-wise?

The Wandboard, right now, is the only computer I have access to... If need be, I can throw a resource-efficient distro like Crunchbang onto a USB key and run it on old Celeron-powered Dell tower with 256MB of RAM (yeah, you read that right - a whole 256MB). I would also need a specialized serial cable, would I not?

If I've been asked to try this, does that mean that the steps I followed and outlined above were correct - as far as you can tell, anyways, without more concrete information?

Thanks in advance... Really anxious to no longer rely on a microSD card to run the OS...

One last question: Am I better off starting a new/separate thread for this?