Hi Innes,
i had some spare time today to play around with my Dreamplug and the
new Slackware 14.0. I couldn't boot up the Dreamplug yet with the kernel
image that is provided by the slackware installer, but on my way trying
i found out some things you also might be interested in. :-)
1.) U-Boot Upgrade:
The original Dreamplug U-Boot is in fact very annoying, mainly because
of the missing ext2load support. I think we spoke about that and about
the workaround a while ago here on the mailing list. Anyway, you can
easily upgrade your U-Boot to a newer one. Just put u-boot.kwb and
uboot.elf from [1] on a vfat formatted usb flash drive (or any other
media you can access) and update u-boot with the following commands
(taken from [2]):
WARNING: All u-boot variables will be erased in the process, including
the ethernet mac adresses! Don't forget to backup/restore them!
usb start
fatload usb 2 0x6400000 dreamplug/u-boot.kwb
sf probe 0
sf erase 0x0 0x80000
sf write 0x6400000 0x0 0x${filesize}
${filesize} is the size that is displayed after executing the fatload
command. You have to convert the value into the corresponding hex value.
You can now replace your vfat partition containing the kernel image
with an ext2 formatted partition. I tried this with my old Slackware
13.37 installation, worked fine.
2.) Booting Slackware 14.0 Installer
Unfortunately you can't boot the slackware installer even with the new
U-Boot version (i tried 2011.12-3 and 2012.04.01-2). There are two
different effects, depending on which machine id you set.
a) Machine ID 3550/0xDDE (Dreamplug): The kernel won't boot and hangs
at "Uncompressing Linux... done, booting the kernel.". I first suspected
CONFIG_ARM_PATCH_PHYS_VIRT as source of the problem, but a patch for
this problem exists since february 2012 [1] and should be included in
the u-boot versions i tried. Also, the kernel boots if i set another
machid (see b)). Nevertheless, i haven't ruled this out yet. I will
b) Machine ID 2659/0xA63 (Guruplug): The kernel starts booting and then
freezes, last line is "[ 2.396407] brd: module loaded". I suppose
this is related to the known problem with probing the NAND flash
(CONFIG_MTD_NAND_ORION=y).
3.) Next steps?
I see two possibilities on how to proceed:
a) Build a custom kernel with NAND probing disabled and set the machine
id to the one that is also used by the Guruplug. I don't like this , but
it might be a quick workaround. You would also have to make sure that
you don't accidentally overwrite your custom kernel with the default one
from Slackware, because this would result in a non-bootable system.
b) Find out what causes the kernel hang from 2a). This would mean that
you can set the machine id to the correct value and that you don't have
to use any workarounds.
So, long story short: You still have to take a custom kernel to be able
to use Slackware on the Dreamplug, but you can now store your kernel
images on an ext2 partition if you update u-boot. I will have a look at
the u-boot sources that where used to build the u-boot images under [1]
later, maybe the patch for CONFIG_ARM_PATCH_PHYS_VIRT isn't included. If
this is the case, i will try to patch and build u-boot myself, maybe it
helps.
Michael
[1] http://people.debian.org/~tbm/u-boot/
[2] http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Firmware
[3] http://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2012-February/117020.html
Hi,
I'm about to start upgrading my Dreamplug to Slackware 14.0. Last
time
I had problems with the 13.37 Slackware kernel because of MTD being
enabled (kernel boot locks when it probes for NAND flash which isn't
present on the Dreamplug), and also the lack of ext2load command in
the
U-Boot. I got over it by using the Guruplug arcnumber (2659),
putting
the kernel + initrd on a local memory card which U-Boot could access,
and using a generic kernel from another source which had no MTD
turned
on. That was about a year ago and it seems that while some things
have
improved, others remain the same.
The Dreamplug now has its own arcnumber (3550) although it seems like
flattened device trees may have made that stuff irrelevant. There is
a
problem with CONFIG_ARM_PATCH_PHYS_VIRT which causes the apparent
hang
at the Kernel Uncompressing... message which looks to be fixed in
later
U-Boots. However, I don't really see a clean U-Boot replacement for
the
Dreamplug anywhere (Debian may have one but as I don't have access to
a
copy of my current/original U-Boot image I'm not sure I want to go
there). The other issue with U-Boot is of course the booting direct
from disk - which I'd love to do (and the SlackwareARM install
assumes
you can do) but cannot with my current system.
Before I dive in and experiment, has anyone got any insights into
Dreamplug installs for Slackware 14.0 or am I too early? I'd be
happy
to continue with the current U-Boot and putting the kernel/initrd
elsewhere for now, but does anyone know if the Slackware kernels can
be
used on the Dreamplug directly, or whether I need to be looking for
another one (or build my own)?
Thanks, Innes.
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