Re: attempting to boot gumstix kernel via QEMU

[Michael Litchard <michael%schmong.org@localhost>]

I am using qemu  pkgsrc-current from
20091015. so I suppose an update is in order.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Robin Randhawa
<robin.randhawa%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> Hi Michael.
>
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 11:45:29PM +0000, Michael Litchard wrote:
>
>>  dd of=cflash.img bs=1k conv=notrunc
>> if=/home/michael/Downloads/u-boot-connex-400-r1578.bin
>>
>> lucius# qemu-system-arm -M connex -m 289 -pflash cflash.img
>> qemu: fatal: Trying to execute code outside RAM or ROM at 0x01000000
>
> Works for me. I pretty much replicated your setup and got this :
>
> $ ./arm-softmmu/qemu-system-arm -M connex -pflash flash -monitor null
> -nographic -s -m 289
> pxa2xx_clkpwr_write: CPU frequency change attempt
>
>
> U-Boot 1.2.0 (Dec 21 2007 - 13:31:10) - 400 MHz - 1578M
>
> *** Welcome to Gumstix ***
>
> DRAM:  64 MB
> pflash_write: Unimplemented flash cmd sequence (offset 0000000000000000,
> wcycle 0x0 cmd 0x0 value 0x90)
> Flash: 16 MB
> Using default environment
>
> SMC91C1111-0
> pflash_write: Unimplemented flash cmd sequence (offset 0000000000000000,
> wcycle 0x0 cmd 0x0 value 0x90)
> Net:   SMC91C1111-0
> Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
> GUM>
>
> Note that I'm using a bleeding edge qemu build from top-of-tree. Are you
> doing the same ?
>
>> I can't find anything using google that specifically talks about using
>> qemu on NetBSD to run an emulated gumstix. Guidance for my more
>> immediate goal,
>> and perhaps my larger goal would be appreciated.
>
> I've never tried using qemu with NetBSD but clearly qemu only really
> does special initialisation for Linux AFAIK (for the system emulation,
> that is) which includes ATAG list initialisation for ARM and a bit of
> setup for secondary cores on an SMP emulation.
>
> I suppose something similar could be done for NetBSD as well. Ideally
> qemu should parse the NetBSD kernel ELF image header and take care of
> loading the image before starting the emulation from the ELF entry
> point. Interestingly, Qemu can only work with Linux zImages (and not
> uncompressed vmlinux images) so there's definitely some customisation
> needed IMHO.
>
> For the moment, your approach is likely to be the least painful. Ensure
> that the flash image that already contains u-boot also has the NetBSD
> binary image (not ELF) at a 'safe' offset and then use u-boot to
> relocate the binary to the addresses the NetBSD kernel expects to be run
> from and then 'go' to that address.
>
> HTH,
> Robin
>