Re: TS7200_INSTALL kernel problem solved - kernel too big!

["Patrick Collins" <normalbloke%gmail.com@localhost>]

Actually this would be very hard for me as I wouldn't have a clue how
to do it. I don't really mind if it only runs on the TS-7200 as this
is the only board I am interested in. Can I bribe someone into doing
this then ???

Thanks.

Patrick Collins
+61 419 712 581



2008/12/12 M. Warner Losh <imp%bsdimp.com@localhost>:
> In message: 
> <a3d9d8e90812111634g2c2f321bu8933cdbe2e57d48e%mail.gmail.com@localhost>
>            "Patrick Collins" <normalbloke%gmail.com@localhost> writes:
> : I think it would be great if we could have a very simple boot loader
> : that could load a NetBSD kernel from CF. Do you think you could magic
> : one of these please Jesse :)
>
> It isn't terribly hard to write a smallish loader to do that.  The
> difficulty comes in generalizing it to run on a lot of different
> platforms.  Small size constraints limit how much you're able to write
> good, modular code.  The boot loader I wrote needed to know the memory
> size so it could program the SDRAM controller with the right memory
> geometry, which makes adaptation to other boards harder...
>
> Warner
>
> : Patrick Collins
> : +61 419 712 581
> :
> :
> :
> : 2008/12/12 Jesse Off <joff%embeddedarm.com@localhost>:
> : > Ken Hornstein wrote:
> : >>>
> : >>> u-boot has those features now, but not redboot.
> : >>>
> : >>
> : >> Yeah, I think that unless Embedded ARM wants to switch to u-boot, that
> : >> doesn't
> : >> help us.  Ah, well.
> : >>
> : >> --Ken
> : >>
> : >>
> : >
> : > We're not a big fan of either u-Boot or RedBoot out here.  Seems like
> : > overkill to write one OS to for the sole purpose of starting up another.  
> I
> : > personally prefer to minimize how many drivers I write or debug for the 
> same
> : > hardware.  :-)
> : >
> : > In our new products, we have written a 442 byte bootloader that loads
> : > kernels from x86 MBR style partitions of either NAND flash or SD card and
> : > can boot a small Linux kernel + ramdisk in about the same amount of time 
> it
> : > takes the RedBoot or u-boot bloatware to start up.  Once up, we have 
> written
> : > a Linux program + kernel module that can start up other OS's, RTOS's, and
> : > OS-less applications.  In effect, we use Linux as our bootloader so that 
> you
> : > could load kernels via NFS over USB wifi dongle and configure pre-bootup
> : > behavior in shell script, etc...
> : >
> : > Here's some info on it:
> : > http://www.embeddedarm.com/software/arm-linux-bootloader.php
> : >
> : > I ported the bootload utility to NetBSD too-- it doesn't even need a 
> kernel
> : > module. I do what I need to do there via /dev/mem and /dev/kmem.
> : >
> : > This application + kernel module should also work on the default TS-7200
> : > Linux installation.  You can place the NetBSD kernel on the Linux JFFS2
> : > filesystem and then run our "bootload" command to soft-boot into another 
> OS.
> : >  On the platforms we've standardized on this scheme we can go from 
> power-on
> : > to Linux to another OS in about 3 seconds or so.  The TS-7200 Linux boots 
> up
> : > a little slower, but its still not too bad.
> : >
> : > //Jesse Off
> : >
> : >
> :
> :
>