Re: NSLU2 won't boot 5.0

[Andy Ruhl <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:14 PM, Donald T Hayford 
<don%donhayford.com@localhost> wrote:
> You can use telnet to get into redboot.  Make sure you ifconfig a
> 192.168.0.x address, because the Slug starts up at 192.168.0.1.  Then load
> the kernel using (assuming your tftp server is at 192.168.0.2)
>   load -r -b 0x200000 -h 192.168.0.2 whatever-the-name-of-your-kernel-is

Yeap, no problem with that I think.
> The kernels built following the instructions in the wiki do boot.  I've used
> them on a Slug with a serial port and one without.  However, if it wasn't
> clear, you can't telnet into the kernel until after it boots up.

Yes, it wasn't clear to me that you can't watch the kernel boot over a
telnet session. Now I know. Maybe I'll put a serial port in it so I
can see it.

Do we know why it won't show bootup messages over the telnet session?
Is that a RedBoot limitation or a NetBSD problem?

So you've
> got to go through all the setup stuff (either NFS or USB disk) first.  If
> you don't have a serial port, the hard part is waiting.

Yeap, I'm starting this now. This reminds me of when I was booting the
Dreamcast, although even with it you could watch the kernel boot on a
TV (if you could actually read it).

>   One potential difficulty (though I've never checked it out) is that the
> Slug is big-endian and a UFS disk written with a little-endian system (i386)
> may not work.  I know I had to enable the bi-endian file system (options
> FFS_EI) in the Slug configuration file when building the install kernel
> since crunchgen was running on a little-endian system.

I didn't realize that filesystems in NetBSD had the endian problem
(actually, that the kernel couldn't handle it), but I guess I do see
that there is the FFS_EI option.

>   One thing I have only played with a little is putting a kernel into flash.
>  Which is where we really want to go.  I've gotten a bootable, gzipped
> kernel down to 800 kB or so, but don't know anything about unzipping and
> sticking it into the right memory location.  I'm interested enough to have a
> go at it if anybody can point the way.

I think we really need a bootloader... But I'm not sure if any of the
NetBSD secondary boot loaders can understand USB? Could a small boot
kernel find USB storage and then boot a kernel from it maybe? I don't
know if the Linux bootloaders understand USB or are working on arm
either...

You've been a big help, thanks.

Andy