[Freedombox-discuss] Creating image on SD card

dww dworthem at msn.com
Sat Feb 2 05:48:14 UTC 2013


Hello,

Thanks, Nick, for the response.

Sent this question to Global Scale Technologies:

	"Has the version of u-boot on DP changed in the last year whereby
formerly it booted from a fat partition but now an ext2 partition?"

And received this response:

	"Yes, that is correct. However, this is adjustable by using the Jtag
module to change the u-boot environment.  Formerly
“x_bootcmd_kernel=fatload usb 0 0x6400000 uImage”, now
“x_bootcmd_kernel=ext2load usb 0 0x6400000 uImage”. This can be changed
by typing under u-boot (Marvell>>) prompt:
set  x_bootcmd_kernel ‘fatload usb 0 0x6400000 uImage’
saveenv
reset

'Please avoid using the arrow keys under u-boot prompt as it is not
recognized."

So why would it be necessary or desirable to format the boot partition
as fat?

Thanks

Dennis










On Fri, 2013-02-01 at 11:59 +0000, Nick Hardiman wrote:
> Hi Dennis, 
> 
> Get Nick Daly's latest 
>      [https://www.betweennowhere.net/tracker/freedombox-unstable.torrent]
>      [https://www.betweennowhere.net/tracker/freedombox-unstable.tar.bz2]
> stick it on a card and see if that boots up.
> 
> the old boot problem 
> 
> If I'm remembering this right, the problem a year ago was -
> 
> The dreamplug bootloader was a hacked version of u-boot (http://www.denx.de/wiki/U-Boot) that could only read from a fat partition. This broke Debian's automatic management of the kernel. You could get rid of this problem by upgrading u-boot using JTAG hardware and OpenOCD (http://openocd.sourceforge.net) software.
> 
> I think I read on a forum that the dreamplug hardware and boot software changed in 2012. If so, this problem may be gone. This is guesswork, I'm afraid. 
> 
> 
> 
> Nick Hardiman
> nick at internetmachines.co.uk
> @intmachines
> 
> 
> 
> On 1 Feb 2013, at 04:00, dww <dworthem at msn.com> wrote:
> 
> > I am new to the freedombox and not very experienced with development on
> > Gnu/Linux but as a beginner I would appreciate feedback on the
> > following .
> > 
> > I tried to follow the procedure to copy the image from
> > http://hackervisions.org/doc/freedombox_14_nov_2011.img.xz to the SD
> > card using dd.  After running dd the SD card had two partitions, one
> > with type fat of 128 MB and the remainder on an ext3 partition. After
> > inserting the card back into my Dream Plug and while starting it up I
> > got the error that the it could not find an ext2 partition from which to
> > boot up. 
> > 
> > I backed up the files from the 2 partitions onto my laptop and then
> > repartioned the card with a 128 MB ext2 partition and the remainder an
> > ext3 partition and copied the files from the laptop back to these
> > partitions (the ext2 one as the boot partition). The DP booted up OK.
> > 
> > For my understanding why did I need to do this or did I do something
> > incorrect? All the instructions I saw on the freedombox web sites or the
> > README file indicate that the first partition should be fat. Or would
> > this have been OK if I had updated uBoot in the firmware according to
> > the instructions?
> > 
> > Thank you.
> > 
> > Dennis
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Freedombox-discuss mailing list
> > Freedombox-discuss at lists.alioth.debian.org
> > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss
> 
> 




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