autoboot of UP Linux image on DE1-SoC fails

[GiuseppeScollo]

I tried to load the Intel FPGA University Program Linux image on my DE1-SoC board, but it does not boot. More precisely, i did the following sequence of actions:

• copied DE1-SoC_UP_Linux.img to a microSD card with dd,
• connected my laptop to the board with the USB-miniUSB cable,
• started PuTTY,
• inserted the microSD card in the board slot,
• powered up the board.

The startup sequence in the PuTTY terminal window was OK up to the point of booting, where I got the following:

U-Boot 2013.01.01 (Apr 25 2014 - 04:59:35)

CPU  : Altera SOCFPGA Platform

BOARD : Altera SOCFPGA Cyclone V Board

I2C:  ready

DRAM: 1 GiB

MMC:  ALTERA DWMMC: 0

In:   serial

Out:  serial

Err:  serial

Net:  mii0

Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

** Unrecognized filesystem type **

** Unrecognized filesystem type **

** Unrecognized filesystem type **

altera_load: Failed with error code -4

## Starting application at 0x3FF7D4F8 ...

## Application terminated, rc = 0x0

Wrong Image Format for bootm command

ERROR: can't get kernel image!

SOCFPGA_CYCLONE5 #

I checked the SD card with fdisk -l, here is what it shows:

Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 5,8 GiB, 6241124352 bytes, 12189696 sectors

Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disklabel type: dos

Disk identifier: 0x0005a3a8

Dispositivo   Avvio  Start    Fine Settori  Size Id Tipo

/dev/mmcblk0p1      2121728 3799447 1677720 819,2M b W95 FAT32

/dev/mmcblk0p2      3801088 12189695 8388608    4G 83 Linux

/dev/mmcblk0p3         2048    4095   2048    1M a2 sconosciuto

The last partition, of unknown filesystem type, is that of the MBR as I understand (because of the 0xa2 Id), where the preloader should be found, correct? Is there something wrong with this image? The tutorial shows how to initialize the SD card with Win32DiskImager, but my laptop only runs (Ubuntu 16.04) Linux. Maybe is this the source of the problem? Thanks in advance for any help.

[GiuseppeScollo]

Re: autoboot of UP Linux image on DE1-SoC fails

The problem is not due to writing the SD card with dd, that's OK. It rather seems to be a preloader problem, in this version of the UP Linux image. I found the previous Image build as of October 18, 2016, at https://xdevs.com/doc/ALTERA/Terasic_DE1SoC/DE1-SoC-UP-Linux.zip that boots successfully. A comparison of the U-Boot startup sequence output in the PuTTY terminal in this case, with that reported for the newer Image, may suggest something about the possible preloader problem with the latter:

U-Boot 2013.01.01 (Apr 25 2014 - 04:59:35)

CPU : Altera SOCFPGA Platform

BOARD : Altera SOCFPGA Cyclone V Board

I2C: ready

DRAM: 1 GiB

MMC: ALTERA DWMMC: 0

In:  serial

Out: serial

Err: serial

Net: mii0

Hit any key to stop autoboot: 0

reading uImage

4315040 bytes read in 385 ms (10.7 MiB/s)

reading socfpga.dtb

19147 bytes read in 7 ms (2.6 MiB/s)

reading soc_system.rbf

2316870 bytes read in 209 ms (10.6 MiB/s)

## starting application at 0x3FF7D4F8 ...

## Application terminated, rc = 0x0

## Booting kernel from Legacy Image at 00007fc0 ...

[...]

The kernel startup runs fine, but the following output is perhaps relevant to the subject problem, since it relates to mounting the SD card:

[   2.270471] EXT3-fs (mmcblk0p2): error: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (240)

[   2.281243] EXT2-fs (mmcblk0p2): error: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (240)

[   2.308475] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. opts: (null)

I wonder whether the preloader in the newest version fails because of inability to recognize the filesystem type (ext4) mounted in the Linux partition.

[Fawaz_Al-Jubori]

Hello, This is based on the linux kernel itself, during compilation, it would be selected to support ext2, 3 and 4. preloader have nothing to do with the ext format. Since preloader could reach you to u-boot, it should be fine. Are you able to boot the board now? Thanks

[GiuseppeScollo]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I am able to boot the board with the October 18, 2016 UP Linux image, not with the latest image, viz. the one which is available on the Intel FPGA UP website. Therefore, I regret I cannot make use of the newer features such as the Python GUI example, nor the C4DE and PyDE libraries. As you may see from my first post, U-Boot doesn't get any kernel image after having not recognized filesystem types, with an altera_load fail with error code -4 (I don't know what this means). Is there anything I could do to fix this?

[Fawaz_Al-Jubori]

Would you please guide me to the link that you downloaded the non-working image?

Thanks

[GiuseppeScollo]

Sure, thank you! Here are two links, for your convenience:

• University Program webpage where The DE1-SoC SD-card images archive is available: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/programmable/support/training/university/materials-tutorials.html?&ifup_version=16.1
• direct link to the subject archive: https://fpgauniversity.intel.com/redirect/materials?id=/pub/Intel_Material/16.1/SD_Images/DE1-SoC.zip

The archive contains two SD-card images, one with U-Boot to boot a baremetal system, the other for the Ubuntu/Linux system. The latter is the troublesome image. Thank you in advance for your help.

[Fawaz_Al-Jubori]

Thanks for your clarifications, I will test the images and let you know the feedback. Thanks