@Hypex

Sound like you are going out of your way to cause problems for yourself.

Do you have the latest uboot installed?

Tell Uboot to boot off of Harddrive by defualt.
If on the occasional need to boot off of CD hit enter on boot and select boot from CD.

Hmm you fault An Amiga for not having built in support for booting another OS off of CD. Also how is Uboot supposed to know wether A CD is bootable once you told it to look for bootable CDs other than by reading it.

The amiga Uboot is rathere really nice I like having a graphical menu that lets me choose which hard drive or OS version I want to boot off of.

Open firmware is not so kind or user friendly.

The original MAI Terons boards used a rather unfriendly and buggy open firmware.

Kgrach

@Geri

Quote:

The kernel image is decompressed to 0x00400000 and a simple bootloader is started at this address, which initializes the device tree and hands it over to the kernel.

Okay so does that mean the kernel needs to have A1 specific code before it in a UBoot/A1 compatible kernel?

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The correct number is 0x00400000. You missed a 0.

I did? Where?


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Yes, at least I think so. (Slowly but surely I get confused with all this addresses! )

Hehe. I see where you do.

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I'm not sure, if U-boot supports that. But even in that case you would have to modify the SLB.

Hm, I've done some experiments with it. It can detect and load raw data. What it does fater that I don't know. Perhaps give it a 400000 instead of a 500000 in diskboot?

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If I understand it correctly the kernel is not relocatable, but don't nail me down to that.

I thought it might be hard to be so. But UBoot does support ELF images. I gues ELF can't be used as a kernel? Unless we bootelf. Poor little fellow. Hehe.

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Embedded boards rarely have a CDROM drive. They usually boot from a FLASH ROM.

Yes, good point. Still, we can boot over net or USB. Never done either.

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Yes, you always need a A1 specific kernel as long as U-boot doesn't provide a device tree on its own (currently a minimal device tree is build into the kernel image and that is A1 specific).

So that's what we need.

This reminds me of a MoL thread. Or something we discussed about a device tree.

@kgrach

Quote:

Sound like you are going out of your way to cause problems for yourself.

I just want things to simply work.

Quote:

Do you have the latest uboot installed?

Is that 1.1.1?

Quote:

Tell Uboot to boot off of Harddrive by defualt.If on the occasional need to boot off of CD hit enter on boot and select boot from CD.

This won't work. It is fine for AmigaOS CD's where it can auto CD boot. But this won't boot a Linux CD. It will cause UBoot to endlessly search for a bootblock.

Infact last time I tried it it just went from one CD drive to another and back again like Bilbo Baggins.

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Hmm you fault An Amiga for not having built in support for booting another OS off of CD.

The support is built in. Otherwise Linux CD's wouldn't boot at all!

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Also how is Uboot supposed to know wether A CD is bootable once you told it to look for bootable CDs other than by reading it.

By seeing if it is an El Torito bootable CD and examining the boot.img if it is, to see if it's Linux or has an Amiga ID. These are standard, these CDs have a boot.img and boot.cat so that can be read in. I'm not sure where the Amiga IDs goes but MakeCD can do it so it must be in a standard place. So I don't see the need to examine all the sectors of the CD to see if it is an AmigaOS bootable CD.

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The amiga Uboot is rathere really nice I like having a graphical menu that lets me choose which hard drive or OS version I want to boot off of.

Graphical! Ha! :LoL!

The early start screen on my A1200 is more graphical and includes a little red pointer. UBoot is all text. I'm not saying it isn't useful that way, I just don't see it as graphical. It's more like "textical" to me. I've seen more modern graphics on a PC BIOS.

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Open firmware is not so kind or user friendly.

Though it is the most popular and beter supported.

Quote:

The original MAI Terons boards used a rather unfriendly and buggy open firmware.

Pitty the buggy parts of the hardware weren't as easily replaced.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @Geri Okay so does that mean the kernel needs to have A1 specific code before it in a UBoot/A1 compatible kernel?

Generally arch/powerpc kernels should be able to start on multiple platforms, but the device tree embedded in the kernel image ties the kernel to the A1 platform. So yes, the kernel image contains A1 specific code.

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Quote: The correct number is 0x00400000. You missed a 0. I did? Where?

Hey, you edited you're previous post!

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Hm, I've done some experiments with it. It can detect and load raw data. What it does fater that I don't know. Perhaps give it a 400000 instead of a 500000 in diskboot?

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I thought it might be hard to be so. But UBoot does support ELF images. I gues ELF can't be used as a kernel? Unless we bootelf. Poor little fellow. Hehe.

Ah yes, there is some sort of ELF load command in U-boot. I think the kernel is a ELF image or at least can be compiled as ELF image (never took a look at all the other compile targets).

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Yes, good point. Still, we can boot over net or USB. Never done either.

Booting over TFTP works fine. I use that to test kernels that I compile on my x86 machine.

Quote:

Quote: Yes, you always need a A1 specific kernel as long as U-boot doesn't provide a device tree on its own (currently a minimal device tree is build into the kernel image and that is A1 specific). So that's what we need.

That's used be the arch/powerpc kernels. It's still a uImage file, but contains a small bootloader (see above), a device tree and the kernel image.

Quote:

This reminds me of a MoL thread. Or something we discussed about a device tree.

Yes, MoL uses OpenFirmware device trees, too.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

I am guessing you don't have your linux partition set to autoboot.
On my machine I have a menu.

1 DH0: OS4 Final
2 DH2: OS4 BETA
3 HDA: LINUX
4 HDA: LInux Expirem

This is not a peg you don't need a stupid non friendly grep partition to boot just select auto_booting with media tool box on a Linux hard drive that has a text file in the boot drawer labled A1boot.conf
Where you can pass your linux variables and things like what kernel you want to load

You can also set up mutiple Kicklayouts and bootable OS4 partitions.

You can set the default OS and how long to timeout in sys:prefs/uboot.prefs and I use the cursor keys or number keys to select the OS.

If you select non graphical in uboot prefs you must use numbers to select

looks like you have the latest public release There are newer Uboots floating amongst the beta testers I don't know if they plan to release them with 4.1 or not

Set your Amiga to boot from HD and then just hit enter and select CD to boot from CD's
simple.

Also to speed up your workbench boot in uboot prefs turn off any non in use IDE ports so OS4 doesn't waste time looking for non existant drives. Also pre identify all devices.
in your startup-sequence add C:RUN > NIL: before add networkinterfaces this way it doesn't wait for your router..

Should cut your reboot time to under seven seconds.

As for the open firmware comment you really are confused

I don't see how telling a system to look for bootable CD and then giving it a CD that identifies itself as bootable but is not and wonder why it looks through the CD for the boot code. So you want the less robust READ SMART WAY OF DOING THINGS. For a firmware that quickly gives up if it doesn't get exactly what it likes.
One way gives you a bootable system the other gives you a door stop.

Kgrach

@kgrach

Quote:

I am guessing you don't have your linux partition set to autoboot.

I do so. That's how I boot my Linux partitions. But what has that got to do with booting a Linux CD?

Quote:

This is not a peg you don't need a stupid non friendly grep partition to boot just select auto_booting with media tool box on a Linux hard drive that has a text file in the boot drawer labled A1boot.conf Where you can pass your linux variables and things like what kernel you want to load

Yes I know. I run it. It's very handy for testing and setting Linux kernels. Except the need to boot into Linux which is slower than OS4 even without a GUI.

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You can also set up mutiple Kicklayouts and bootable OS4 partitions.

Which is why I have OS4 Final update and OS4 UD#4 on my boot list.

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Set your Amiga to boot from HD and then just hit enter and select CD to boot from CD's simple.

Only problem is that only boots Amiga CDs. I wish to boot Linux CDs. What do I do then if I wish to boot from a Linux CD with this menu?

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Also to speed up your workbench boot in uboot prefs turn off any non in use IDE ports so OS4 doesn't waste time looking for non existant drives. Also pre identify all devices.

I do agree but could this make it worse? If drives are switched around UBoot must be told first otherwise OS4 will refuse to boot. What does specifying the device type actually do? Does OS4 run any smoother?

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Should cut your reboot time to under seven seconds.

I have this. I also put it on an A1-600SE which caused it to crash on boot up but that's another story.

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As for the open firmware comment you really are confused

How so? OpenFirmware is used on the Mac. I think the Pegaos variant is called SmartFirmware. Both are supported directly by an official Debian install CD as well as CHRP. UBoot is not.

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I don't see how telling a system to look for bootable CD and then giving it a CD that identifies itself as bootable but is not and wonder why it looks through the CD for the boot code. So you want the less robust READ SMART WAY OF DOING THINGS. For a firmware that quickly gives up if it doesn't get exactly what it likes.

In actual fact the CD it is stuck on here is bootable. It's an A1 Linux install CD. It is "UBootable." But the FLB cannot boot from it.

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One way gives you a bootable system the other gives you a door stop.

You are right here I must say, the "READ SMART WAY OF DOING THINGS" as you so put it gives me a door stop!! Until 30 seconds later the door opens.

Please do a test. Set your A1 to boot first from CD then HD. Now drop an A1 Debian install CD in the drive and restart UBoot. Can your system boot the CD?

Alternately, use the CD boot menu as you so suggested, can you boot the install CD?

If so, then please list your UBoot settings. My UBoot was reset recently so may be missing some settings. But here I cannot get UBoot to boot a Linux CD itself. I have do do it manually on the UBoot command line with the diskboot and boom commands.

@Geri

Quote:

Generally arch/powerpc kernels should be able to start on multiple platforms, but the device tree embedded in the kernel image ties the kernel to the A1 platform. So yes, the kernel image contains A1 specific code.

Okay, simply understood. I do remember you explaining that in more detail on AW somewhere.

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Hey, you edited you're previous post!

Hehe! Yeah I know, sorry. But it was done before you replied to the last one.

Quote:


I think it was meant to say this:
Hm, I've done some experiments with it. It can detect and load raw data. What it does after that, I don't know. Perhaps give it a 400000 instead of a 500000 in diskboot?

What I meant was it can load uncompressed uimages. What is does after loading and if it can run them I don't know. If so, perhaps load them at 0x400000, so they can run straight off that address. There.

Quote:

Ah yes, there is some sort of ELF load command in U-boot. I think the kernel is a ELF image or at least can be compiled as ELF image (never took a look at all the other compile targets).

I must look at the kernel before it gets compressed and UBootable soon.

Quote:

Booting over TFTP works fine. I use that to test kernels that I compile on my x86 machine.

I wonder, can MacOSX be used to boot off? I'd like to use my Mac as boot server but don't know how to set up TFTP on it.

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That's used be the arch/powerpc kernels. It's still a uImage file, but contains a small bootloader (see above), a device tree and the kernel image.

Okay yep.

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Yes, MoL uses OpenFirmware device trees, too.

Did it need the same sort of work put into it for the A1 version?

Last edited by Hypex on 25-Jul-2008 at 11:18 AM.

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @Geri I think it was meant to say this: Hm, I've done some experiments with it. It can detect and load raw data. What it does after that, I don't know. Perhaps give it a 400000 instead of a 500000 in diskboot?

Doesn't diskboot depend on bootm? I guess it would be necessary to use another command to boot a raw image. Maybe "go" could run a raw kernel image. But I guess it would not hand over the board data structure needed by the kernel (which specifies the amount of memory, CPU and bus speed, etc.).

Quote:

I wonder, can MacOSX be used to boot off? I'd like to use my Mac as boot server but don't know how to set up TFTP on it.

NFS should work, too. Does OS X support NFS at all?

Quote:

Did it need the same sort of work put into it for the A1 version?

Probably a lot more, but you would have to ask the original author. For the A1 I merely had to find out what the kernel needs to correctly boot and configure the system. That's not much, but I needed some time to understand the idea behind device trees.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Geri

Quote:

Doesn't diskboot depend on bootm? I guess it would be necessary to use another command to boot a raw image. Maybe "go" could run a raw kernel image. But I guess it would not hand over the board data structure needed by the kernel (which specifies the amount of memory, CPU and bus speed, etc.).

Yes it does need bootm. But I think diskboot is a misnomer, it's more like a diskload. All it does it load the boot image into memory, not boot it! bootm does the actual booting.

Is the "BDS" different to what the bdinfo coomand does? I guess go could work. But, it is possible to boot a raw kernel. PegXMAc included a HD kernel as do I on my Etch install CD. I have an uncompressed 2.6.18 UBoot image which I put on the HD kernel as it loads faster!

Just need to combine an image with it and see. Of course I think both will have to be umcompressed.

Quote:

NFS should work, too. Does OS X support NFS at all?

I'm not sure. I suupose it should since it is based on Unix. It supports SAMBA (Windows.)

Just checked, yes it does support NFS. But if it supports serving one without running MacOSX Server I don't know.

Quote:

Probably a lot more, but you would have to ask the original author. For the A1 I merely had to find out what the kernel needs to correctly boot and configure the system. That's not much, but I needed some time to understand the idea behind device trees.

Okay.

That reminds me, building the install CD didn't take much, one I knew how to put the files together. Once I had set up some scripts to help it's quite a simple process to rebuild an install CD. I did employ the KISS principle by using the standard initrd.

@Hypex

Quote:

Amiga bootable CD's have an ID like "AMIGA BOOT" on them. If that isn't on the CD it should stop looking and boot the HD.

The U-Boot SLB can also boot Linux. A CD with an ID of AMIGA BOOT is bootable by AmigaOS; it does not exclude it from being bootable by SLB/U-Boot.

Quote:

But UBoot has been left for years. It's time for an update!

No it isn't. Considering that the hardware was done by Eyetech, and I have already invested quite a lot of work in it (as has Andrea Valinotto, and my brother), I do not really see a reason for this. U-Boot and the AmigaOne was never my product; all we have done in this respect in the past was a service to the users, a free service as I might point out. Neither of us has the time or the incentive to do that anymore.

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@Rogue

I finally caught your attention again.

Quote:

The U-Boot SLB can also boot Linux. A CD with an ID of AMIGA BOOT is bootable by AmigaOS; it does not exclude it from being bootable by SLB/U-Boot.

As you could see by reading the thread I failed to get UBoot to boot a Linux CD by enabling the CD booting. By the time the SLB kicks in on my machine it seems to be stuck in Amiga mode and doesn't think about Linux. Looks like I got the ID right though.

Now if you can tell me, an El Torito Linux bootable CD with a UBoot image left in the CD drive, and CD booting enabling in UBoot, should boot that UBoot image? Then I am in trouble with my machine (or settings) because I cannot get such a thing to work here!

Quote:

No it isn't. Considering that the hardware was done by Eyetech, and I have already invested quite a lot of work in it (as has Andrea Valinotto, and my brother), I do not really see a reason for this. U-Boot and the AmigaOne was never my product; all we have done in this respect in the past was a service to the users, a free service as I might point out. Neither of us has the time or the incentive to do that anymore.

I do of course appreciate the fact I can run OS4 on a stand along machine that is newer than my A1200. I had hoped that the latest source code could be patched with your changes and FLB/SLB code to enable an easy firmware update. It makes me wonder then, why was effort put into BIOSUpdater if the program is never going to be used?

As I understand it, your product is AmigaOS4. Which you recently have released for the long overdue Classic machines. And it looks to be ending there for 4.0. Except for 4.1, which, right now only runs on the AmigaOne hardware.

So it looks like we are stuck here. We don't have a new machine yet to put the AmigaOne "abomination" behind us. And the work being put into OS4 is made to run on the AmigaOne. So I too would like to forget about UBoot and embrace a better firmware but I cannot so what else am I too do? The OS4.1 update sounds nice, but it would nice to have some nice hardware to run it on.

@Rogue, Hypex

What about creating an open A1 firmware project, where interested users can submit bugfixes, etc..?
I think there are some users that would like to work on a updated U-boot version.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

Quote:

Now if you can tell me, an El Torito Linux bootable CD with a UBoot image left in the CD drive, and CD booting enabling in UBoot, should boot that UBoot image? Then I am in trouble with my machine (or settings) because I cannot get such a thing to work here!

To be honest, the last time I touched Linux on the AmigaOne is well over three years ago. I couldn't help you there. I think diskboot should work in any case, but my interest in Linux was never very big.

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I had hoped that the latest source code could be patched with your changes and FLB/SLB code to enable an easy firmware update

I really don't know what you mean... What latest source code? What changes to FLB/SLB?

Quote:

why was effort put into BIOSUpdater if the program is never going to be used?

It was used, in the past, but you are barking up the wrong tree. I never was a fan of doing flash rom updates on a fully booted system; I thought that a floppy or CD-ROM updater was enough, and I didn't write the bios updater.

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We don't have a new machine yet to put the AmigaOne "abomination" behind us

I know how hip the AmigaOne/Articia bashing seems to be, but I won't help you much. Contrary to what man people say, the AmigaOne is a pretty nice machine; it has its flaws, and those should have been ironed out by a second/third version of it, but sadly the whole project got stuck.

Calling it an "abomination" is nonsense. A lot of people use it daily, and apart from one or the other quirk, they work.

Quote:

The OS4.1 update sounds nice, but it would nice to have some nice hardware to run it on.

My history teacher used to say "Getretener Quark wird breit nicht stark" (which is impossible to translate, but it means something like repeating something over and over does not make it any better or more probable).

Yes, I know new hardware would be nice. So would be a date with Jessica Alba. Or peace for the world. Two Christmas a year. Do I get any of those? Nope. Can I change anything about it? Probably not (I haven't tried to ask Jessica Alba for a date yet, though).

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@Geri

Quote:

What about creating an open A1 firmware project, where interested users can submit bugfixes, etc..? I think there are some users that would like to work on a updated U-boot version.

You would need to find a way to isolate and re-burn the dongle code, plus all the additional stuff like the Radeon ROM that is on there.

Oh and don't complain to me about this, the dongle code was certainly not my idea.

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Can you boot from a USB stick? or is that another 'feature' of uboot, that could do with being changed?

Last edited by Stephen_Robinson on 10-Aug-2008 at 09:50 PM.

_________________
Rage quited 29th May 2011

@Stephen_Robinson

http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/app_note/AN3217.pdf

_________________
This weeks pet peeve:
Using "voltage" instead of "potential", which leads to inventing new words like "amperage" instead of "current" (I, measured in A) or possible "charge" (amperehours, Ah or Coulomb, C). Sometimes I don't even know what people mean.

@olegil

Blimey! Never knew you could do that.

Shame it's not like your standard I386 board, where you just change the boot order in that psuedo-GUI thingy.. wonder if you'd be able to stick Debian Etch install on a USB stick.

Alas I'm far to lazy to even think about doing it, sorry!

_________________
Rage quited 29th May 2011

@Stephen_Robinson

Quote:

Stephen_Robinson wrote: @olegil Blimey! Never knew you could do that. Shame it's not like your standard I386 board, where you just change the boot order in that psuedo-GUI thingy.. wonder if you'd be able to stick Debian Etch install on a USB stick. Alas I'm far to lazy to even think about doing it, sorry!

Dunno about Etch, but it should be possible.

Sid and Knoppix on USB.
Also
http://live.debian.net/ offer Debian on USB, seems to be for x86 though.




On a different note, anyone who knows when they plan to release Lenny?

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@Rogue

Quote:

Rogue wrote: @Geri You would need to find a way to isolate and re-burn the dongle code, plus all the additional stuff like the Radeon ROM that is on there.

The dongle code is a problem. On the other side basic testing could be done with Linux. OS4 developers could check out a working revision (working under Linux), add the dongle code and test it with OS4. However non-OS4 developers would have to equip the A1 with a DualBIOS functionality (could be done with a simple hardware addon). Otherwise it would be hard to recover a A1 with a broken U-boot revision. ROM emulators may be too costly for normal users, too. Naturally hardware debugging is a big problem due to the lack of a BDI2000 (or a similar device).
What's this Radeon ROM? I thought there's a x86 emulator build into the firmware?

Quote:

Oh and don't complain to me about this, the dongle code was certainly not my idea.

Okay. But can we have the latest U-boot source code or would it be possible to open your repository for the public?

Last edited by Geri on 11-Aug-2008 at 09:08 PM.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -

@Hypex

Quote:

Hypex wrote: @Geri Yes it does need bootm. But I think diskboot is a misnomer, it's more like a diskload. All it does it load the boot image into memory, not boot it! bootm does the actual booting.

Right!

Quote:

Is the "BDS" different to what the bdinfo coomand does? I guess go could work. But, it is possible to boot a raw kernel. PegXMAc included a HD kernel as do I on my Etch install CD. I have an uncompressed 2.6.18 UBoot image which I put on the HD kernel as it loads faster!

bdinfo only shows the content of the board data structure and bootm hands over the address of the bds to the kernel. I think this is what "go" doesn't do.

_________________
A1SE: G3@600MHz, 2GB, 1GBit network card
A1XE: G4@933MHz, 2GB, refitted AC'97 codec
microA1: G3@800MHz, 1GB

- A1 Linux support -