path: root/README.hardware

                     Poky Hardware Reference Guide
                     =============================

This file gives details about using Poky with different hardware reference
boards and consumer devices. A full list of target machines can be found by 
looking in the meta/conf/machine/ directory. If in doubt about using Poky with 
your hardware, consult the documentation for your board/device. To discuss 
support for further hardware reference boards/devices please contact OpenedHand.

QEMU Emulation Images (qemuarm and qemux86)
===========================================

To simplify development Poky supports building images to work with the QEMU
emulator in system emulation mode. Two architectures are currently supported,
ARM (via qemuarm) and x86 (via qemux86). Use of the QEMU images is covered
in the Poky Handbook.

Hardware Reference Boards
=========================

The following boards are supported by Poky:

  * Compulab CM-X270 (cm-x270)
  * Compulab EM-X270 (em-x270)
  * FreeScale iMX31ADS (mx31ads)
  * Marvell PXA3xx Zylonite (zylonite)
  * Logic iMX31 Lite Kit (mx31litekit)
  * Phytec phyCORE-iMX31 (mx31phy)
  * Texas Instruments Beagleboard (beagleboard)

For more information see board's section below. The Poky MACHINE setting
corresponding to the board is given in brackets.

Consumer Devices
================

The following consumer devices are supported by Poky:

  * FIC Neo1973 GTA01 smartphone (fic-gta01)
  * HTC Universal (htcuniversal)
  * Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet Tablets (nokia770 and nokia800)
  * Sharp Zaurus SL-C7x0 series (c7x0)
  * Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 (akita)
  * Sharp Zaurus SL-C3x00 series (spitz)

For more information see board's section below. The Poky MACHINE setting
corresponding to the board is given in brackets.

Poky Boot CD (bootcdx86)
========================

The Poky boot CD iso images are designed as a demonstration of the Poky 
environment and to show the versatile image formats Poky can generate. It will
run on Pentium2 or greater PC style computers. The iso image can be 
burnt to CD and then booted from.


                          Hardware Reference Boards
                          =========================

Compulab CM-X270 (cm-x270)
==========================

The bootloader on this board doesn't support writing jffs2 images directly to 
NAND and normally uses a proprietary kernel flash driver. To allow the use of
jffs2 images, a two stage updating procedure is needed. Firstly, an initramfs
is booted which contains mtd utilities and this is then used to write the main
filesystem. 

It is assumed the board is connected to a network where a TFTP server is 
available and that a serial terminal is available to communicate with the 
bootloader (38400, 8N1). If a DHCP server is available the device will use it
to obtain an IP address. If not, run:

  ARMmon > setip dhcp off
  ARMmon > setip ip 192.168.1.203
  ARMmon > setip mask 255.255.255.0

To reflash the kernel:

  ARMmon > download kernel tftp zimage 192.168.1.202
  ARMmon > flash kernel

where zimage is the name of the kernel on the TFTP server and its IP address is 
192.168.1.202. The names of the files must be all lowercase.

To reflash the initrd/initramfs:

  ARMmon > download ramdisk tftp diskimage 192.168.1.202
  ARMmon > flash ramdisk

where diskimage is the name of the initramfs image (a cpio.gz file).

To boot the initramfs:

  ARMmon > ramdisk on
  ARMmon > bootos "console=ttyS0,38400 rdinit=/sbin/init"

To reflash the main image login to the system as user "root", then run:

  # ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.203
  # tftp -g -r mainimage 192.168.1.202
  # flash_eraseall /dev/mtd1
  # nandwrite /dev/mtd1 mainimage

which configures the network interface with the IP address 192.168.1.203,
downloads the "mainimage" file from the TFTP server at 192.168.1.202, erases
the flash and then writes the new image to the flash.

The main image can then be booted with:

  ARMmon > bootos "console=ttyS0,38400 root=/dev/mtdblock1 rootfstype=jffs2"

Note that the initramfs image is built by poky in a slightly different mode to
normal since it uses uclibc. To generate this use a command like:

IMAGE_FSTYPES=cpio.gz MACHINE=cm-x270 POKYLIBC=uclibc bitbake poky-image-minimal-mtdutils


Compulab EM-X270 (em-x270)
==========================

Fetch the "Linux - kernel and run-time image (Angstrom)" ZIP file from the
Compulab website. Inside the images directory of this ZIP file is another ZIP
file called 'LiveDisk.zip'. Extract this over a cleanly formatted vfat USB flash
drive. Replace the 'em_x270.img' file with the 'updater-em-x270.ext2' file.

Insert this USB disk into the supplied adapter and connect this to the
board. Whilst holding down the the suspend button press the reset button. The
board will now boot off the USB key and into a version of Angstrom. On the
desktop is an icon labelled "Updater". Run this program to launch the updater
that will flash the Poky kernel and rootfs to the board.


FreeScale iMX31ADS (mx31ads)
===========================

The correct serial port is the top-most female connector to the right of the
ethernet socket.

For uploading data to RedBoot we are going to use tftp. In this example we
assume that the tftpserver is on 192.168.9.1 and the board is on192.168.9.2. 

To set the IP address, run:

  ip_address -l 192.168.9.2/24 -h 192.168.9.1

To download a kernel called "zimage" from the TFTP server, run:

  load -r -b 0x100000 zimage

To write the kernel to flash run:

  fis create kernel

To download a rootfs jffs2 image "rootfs" from the TFTP server, run:

  load -r -b 0x100000 rootfs

To write the root filesystem  to flash run:

  fis create root

To load and boot a kernel and rootfs from flash:

  fis load kernel
  exec -b 0x100000 -l 0x200000 -c "noinitrd console=ttymxc0,115200 root=/dev/mtdblock2 rootfstype=jffs2 init=linuxrc ip=none"

To load and boot a kernel from a TFTP server with the rootfs over NFS:

  load -r -b 0x100000 zimage
  exec -b 0x100000 -l 0x200000 -c "noinitrd console=ttymxc0,115200 root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.9.1:/mnt/nfsmx31 rw ip=192.168.9.2::192.168.9.1:255.255.255.0"

The instructions above are for using the (default) NOR flash on the board,
there is also 128M of NAND flash. It is possible to install Poky to the NAND 
flash which gives more space for the rootfs and instructions for using this are
given below. To switch to the NAND flash:

  factive NAND

This will then restart RedBoot using the NAND rather than the NOR. If you
have not used the NAND before then it is unlikely that there will be a
partition table yet. You can get the list of partitions with 'fis list'.

If this shows no partitions then you can create them with:

  fis init

The output of 'fis list' should now show:

Name              FLASH addr  Mem addr    Length      Entry point
RedBoot           0xE0000000  0xE0000000  0x00040000  0x00000000
FIS directory     0xE7FF4000  0xE7FF4000  0x00003000  0x00000000
RedBoot config    0xE7FF7000  0xE7FF7000  0x00001000  0x00000000

Partitions for the kernel and rootfs need to be created:

fis create -l 0x1A0000 -e 0x00100000 kernel
fis create -l 0x5000000 -e 0x00100000 root

You may now use the instructions above for flashing. However it is important
to note that the erase block size for the NAND is different to the NOR so the
JFFS erase size will need to be changed to 0x4000. Stardard images are built
for NOR and you will need to build custom images for NAND.

You will also need to update the kernel command line to use the correct root
filesystem. This should be '/dev/mtdblock7' if you adhere to the partitioning
scheme shown above. If this fails then you can doublecheck against the output
from the kernel when it evaluates the available mtd partitions.


Marvell PXA3xx Zylonite (zylonite)
==================================

These instructions assume the Zylonite is connected to a machine running a TFTP 
server at address 192.168.123.5 and that a serial link (38400 8N1) is available 
to access the blob bootloader. The kernel is on the TFTP server as 
"zylonite-kernel" and the root filesystem jffs2 file is "zylonite-rootfs" and 
the images are to be saved in NAND flash.

The following commands setup blob:

  blob> setip client 192.168.123.4
  blob> setip server 192.168.123.5

To flash the kernel:

  blob> tftp zylonite-kernel
  blob> nandwrite -j 0x80800000 0x60000 0x200000

To flash the rootfs:

  blob> tftp zylonite-rootfs
  blob> nanderase -j 0x260000 0x5000000
  blob> nandwrite -j 0x80800000 0x260000 <length>

(where <length> is the rootfs size which will be printed by the tftp step)

To boot the board:

  blob> nkernel
  blob> boot


Logic iMX31 Lite Kit (mx31litekit)
===============================

The easiest method to boot this board is to take an MMC/SD card and format 
the first partition as ext2, then extract the poky image onto this as root. 
Assuming the board is network connected, a TFTP server is available at 
192.168.1.33 and a serial terminal is available (115200 8N1), the following 
commands will boot a kernel called "mx31kern" from the TFTP server:

  losh> ifconfig sm0 192.168.1.203 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.33
  losh> load raw 0x80100000 0x200000 /tftp/192.168.1.33:mx31kern
  losh> exec 0x80100000 - 


Phytec phyCORE-iMX31 (mx31phy)
==============================

Support for this board is currently being developed. Experimental jffs2 
images and a suitable kernel are available and are known to work with the
board.


                             Consumer Devices
                             ================

FIC Neo1973 GTA01 smartphone (fic-gta01)
========================================

To install Poky on a GTA01 smartphone you will need "dfu-util" tool
which you can build with "bitbake dfu-util-native" command.

Flashing requires these steps:

  1. Power down the device.
  2. Connect the device to the host machine via USB.
  3. Hold AUX key and press Power key. There should be a bootmenu
     on screen.
  4. Run "dfu-util -l" to check if the phone is visible on the USB bus. 
     The output should look like this:

     dfu-util - (C) 2007 by OpenMoko Inc.
     This program is Free Software and has ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY

     Found Runtime: [0x1457:0x5119] devnum=19, cfg=0, intf=2, alt=0, name="USB Device Firmware Upgrade"

  5. Flash the kernel with "dfu-util -a kernel -D uImage-2.6.21.6-moko11-r2-fic-gta01.bin"
  6. Flash rootfs with "dfu-util -a rootfs -D <image>", where <image> is the
     jffs2 image file to use as the root filesystem 
     (e.g. ./tmp/deploy/images/poky-image-sato-fic-gta01.jffs2) 


HTC Universal (htcuniversal)
============================

Note: HTC Universal support is highly experimental.

On the HTC Universal, entirely replacing the Windows installation is not 
supported, instead Poky is booted from an MMC/SD card from Windows. Once Poky
has booted, Windows is no longer in memory or active but when power is removed,
the user will be returned to windows and will need to return to Linux from 
there.

Once an MMC/SD card is available it is suggested its split into two partitions,
one for a program called HaRET which lets you boot Linux from within Windows
and the second for the rootfs. The HaRET partition should be the first partition
on the card and be vfat formatted. It doesn't need to be large, just enough for
HaRET and a kernel (say 5MB max). The rootfs should be ext2 and is usually the 
second partition. The first partition should be vfat so Windows recognises it 
as if it doesn't, it has been known to reformat cards.

On the first partition you need three files:

  * a HaRET binary (version 0.5.1 works well and a working version 
    should be part of the last Poky release)
  * a kernel renamed to "zImage"
  * a default.txt which contains:

set kernel "zImage"
set mtype "855"
set cmdline "root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rw console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 rootdelay=5 fbcon=rotate:1"
boot2

On the second parition the root file system is extracted as root. A different
partition layout or other kernel options can be changed in the default.txt file.

When inserted into the device, Windows should see the card and let you browse
its contents using File Explorer. Running the HaRET binary will present a dialog
box (maybe after messages warning about running unsigned binaries) where you 
select OK and you should then see Poky boot. Kernel messages can be seen by 
adding psplash=false to the kernel commandline.


Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet Tablets (nokia770 and nokia800)
============================================================

Note: Nokia tablet support is highly experimental.

The Nokia internet tablet devices are OMAP based tablet formfactor devices 
with large screens (800x480), wifi and touchscreen.

To flash images to these devices you need the "flasher" utility which can be 
downloaded from the http://tablets-dev.nokia.com/d3.php?f=flasher-3.0. This 
utility needs to be run as root and the usb filesystem needs to be mounted 
although most distributions will have done this for you. Once you have this 
follow these steps:

  1. Power down the device.
  2. Connect the device to the host machine via USB 
     (connecting power to the device doesn't hurt either).
  3. Run "flasher -i"
  4. Power on the device.
  5. The program should give an indication it's found 
     a tablet device. If not, recheck the cables, make sure you're 
     root and usbfs/usbdevfs is mounted.
  6. Run "flasher -r <image> -k <kernel> -f", where <image> is the
     jffs2 image file to use as the root filesystem 
     (e.g. ./tmp/deploy/images/poky-image-sato-nokia800.jffs2) 
     and <kernel> is the kernel to use 
     (e.g. ./tmp/deploy/images/zImage-nokia800.bin).
  7. Run "flasher -R" to reboot the device.
  8. The device should boot into Poky.

The nokia800 images and kernel will run on both the N800 and N810.


Sharp Zaurus SL-C7x0 series (c7x0)
==================================

The Sharp Zaurus c7x0 series (SL-C700, SL-C750, SL-C760, SL-C860, SL-7500)
are PXA25x based handheld PDAs with VGA screens. To install Poky images on
these devices follow these steps:

  1. Obtain an SD/MMC or CF card with a vfat or ext2 filesystem.
  2. Copy a jffs2 image file (e.g. poky-image-sato-c7x0.jffs2) onto the
     card as "initrd.bin":

     $ cp ./tmp/deploy/images/poky-image-sato-c7x0.jffs2 /path/to/my-cf-card/initrd.bin

  3. Copy an Linux kernel file (zImage-c7x0.bin) onto the card as 
     "zImage.bin":

     $ cp ./tmp/deploy/images/zImage-c7x0.bin /path/to/my-cf-card/zImage.bin

  4. Copy an updater script (updater.sh.c7x0) onto the card
     as "updater.sh":

     $ cp ./tmp/deploy/images/updater.sh.c7x0 /path/to/my-cf-card/updater.sh

  5. Power down the Zaurus.
  6. Hold "OK" key and power on the device. An update menu should appear 
     (in Japanese).
  7. Choose "Update" (item 4).
  8. The next screen will ask for the source, choose the appropriate 
     card (CF or SD).
  9. Make sure AC power is connected.
  10. The next screen asks for confirmation, choose "Yes" (the left button).
  11. The update process will start, flash the files on the card onto 
      the device and the device will then reboot into Poky.


Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 (akita)
=============================

The Sharp Zaurus SL-C1000 is a PXA270 based device otherwise similar to the 
c7x0. To install Poky images on this device follow the instructions for 
the c7x0 but replace "c7x0" with "akita" where appropriate.


Sharp Zaurus SL-C3x00 series (spitz)
====================================

The Sharp Zaurus SL-C3x00 devices are PXA270 based devices similar
to akita but with an internal microdrive. The installation procedure 
assumes a standard microdrive based device where the root (first) 
partition has been enlarged to fit the image (at least 100MB, 
400MB for the SDK).

The procedure is the same as for the c7x0 and akita models with the 
following differences:

 1. Instead of a jffs2 image you need to copy a compressed tarball of the 
    root fileystem (e.g. poky-image-sato-spitz.tar.gz) onto the
    card as "hdimage1.tgz":

    $ cp ./tmp/deploy/images/poky-image-sato-spitz.tar.gz /path/to/my-cf-card/hdimage1.tgz

 2. You additionally need to copy a special tar utility  (gnu-tar) onto 
    the card as "gnu-tar":

    $ cp ./tmp/deploy/images/gnu-tar /path/to/my-cf-card/gnu-tar


Intel Atom based PCs and devices (atom-pc)
==========================================

The atom-pc MACHINE is tested on the following platforms:

  o Asus eee901
  o Acer Aspire One
  o Toshiba NB305
  o Intel Embedded Development Board 1-N450 (Black Sand)

and is likely to work on many unlisted atom based devices. The MACHINE type
supports ethernet, wifi, sound, and i915 graphics by default in addition to
common PC input devices, busses, and so on.

Depending on the device, it can boot from a traditional hard-disk, a USB device,
or over the network. Writing poky generated images to physical media is
straightforward with a caveat for USB devices. The following examples assume the
target boot device is /dev/sdb, be sure to verify this and use the correct
device as the following commands are run as root and are not reversable.

Hard Disk:
  1. Build a directdisk image format. This will generate proper partition tables
     that will in turn be written to the physical media. For example:

     $ bitbake poky-image-minimal-directdisk
  
  2. Use the "dd" utility to write the image to the raw block device. For example:

     # dd if=poky-image-minimal-directdisk-atom-pc.hdddirect of=/dev/sdb

USB Device:
  1. Build an hddimg image format. This is a simple filesystem without partition
     tables and is suitable for USB keys. For example:

     $ bitbake poky-image-minimal-live

  2. Use the "dd" utility to write the image to the raw block device. For
     example:

     # dd if=poky-image-minimal-live-atom-pc.hddimg of=/dev/sdb

  If the device fails to boot with "Boot error" displayed, it is likely the BIOS
  cannot understand the physical layout of the disk (or rather it expects a
  particular layout and cannot handle anything else). There are two possible
  solutions to this problem:

  1. Change the BIOS USB Device setting to HDD mode. The label will vary by
     device, but the idea is to force BIOS to read the Cylinder/Head/Sector
     geometry from the device.

  2. Without such an option, the BIOS generally boots the device in USB-ZIP
     mode.

     a. Configure the USB device for USB-ZIP mode:
     
     # mkdiskimage -4 /dev/sdb 0 63 62

     Where 63 and 62 are the head and sector count as reported by fdisk.
     Remove and reinsert the device to allow the kernel to detect the new
     partition layout.

     b. Copy the contents of the poky image to the USB-ZIP mode device:

     # mount -o loop poky-image-minimal-live-atom-pc.hddimg  /tmp/image
     # mount /dev/sdb4 /tmp/usbkey
     # cp -rf /tmp/image/* /tmp/usbkey

     c. Install the syslinux boot loader:

     # syslinux /dev/sdb4

  Install the boot device in the target board and configure the BIOS to boot
  from it.

  For more details on the USB-ZIP scenario, see the syslinux documentation:
  http://git.kernel.org/?p=boot/syslinux/syslinux.git;a=blob_plain;f=doc/usbkey.txt;hb=HEAD


Texas Instruments Beagleboard (beagleboard)
===========================================

The Beagleboard is an ARM Cortex-A8 development board with USB, DVI-D, S-Video,
2D/3D accelerated graphics, audio, serial, JTAG, and SD/MMC. The xM adds a
faster CPU, more RAM, an ethernet port, more USB ports, microSD, and removes
the NAND flash. The beagleboard MACHINE is tested on the following platforms:

  o Beagleboard xM

TODO: need someone with a Beagleboard C4 to verify these instructions.

Due to the lack of NAND on the xM, the install and boot process varies a bit
between boards.  The C4 can run the x-loader and u-boot binaries from NAND or
the SD, while the xM can only run them from the SD. The following instructions
apply to both the C4 and the xM, but te C4 can skip step 2 (as noted below),
and may require modification of the NAND environment.

  1. Partition and format an SD card:
     # fdisk -lu /dev/mmcblk0
     
     Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 3951 MB, 3951034368 bytes
     255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 480 cylinders, total 7716864 sectors
     Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
     
             Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
     /dev/mmcblk0p1   *          63      144584       72261   c Win95 FAT32 (LBA)
     /dev/mmcblk0p2          144585      465884      160650  83 Linux

     # mkfs.vfat -F 16 -n "boot" /dev/mmcblk0p1
     # mke2fs -j -L "root" /dev/mmcblk0p2

   The following assumes the SD card partition 1 and 2 are mounted at
   /media/boot and /media/root respectively. The files referenced here
   are made available after the build in build/tmp/deploy/images.

  2. Install the boot loaders
     This step can be omitted for the C4 as it can have the x-loader and
     u-boot installed in NAND.

     # cp MLO-beagleboard /media/boot/MLO
     # cp u-boot-beagleboard.bin /media/boot/u-boot.bin

  3. Install the root filesystem
     # tar x -C /media/root -f poky-image-$IMAGE_TYPE-beagleboard.tar.bz2
     # tar x -C /media/root -f modules-$KERNEL_VERSION-beagleboard.tgz

  4. Install the kernel uImage
     # cp uImage-beagleboard.bin /media/boot/uImage

  5. Prepare a u-boot script to simplify the boot process
     The Beagleboard can be made to boot at this point from the u-boot command
     shell. To automate this process, generate a user.scr script as follows.

     Install uboot-mkimage (from uboot-mkimage on Ubuntu or uboot-tools on Fedora).

     Prepare a script config:

     # (cat << EOF
     setenv bootcmd 'mmc init; fatload mmc 0:1 0x80300000 uImage; bootm 0x80300000'
     setenv bootargs 'console=tty0 console=ttyS2,115200n8 root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait rootfstype=ext3 ro'
     boot
     EOF
     ) > serial-boot.cmd
     # mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n "Poky Minimal" -d ./serial-boot.cmd ./user.scr
     # cp user.scr /media/boot

   6. Unmount the SD partitions and boot the Beagleboard