Nios-II boot monitor available (u-boot)

Altera_Forum · ‎08-24-2004

U-Boot is a boot monitor that supports a variety of processors including: Nios-II, Nios-32, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, and x86. It is licensed under the terms of the GPL.

A patch has (just) been submitted to the u-boot project that includes support for Nios-II processors. Hopefully, the patch will be added to the main source tree within the next few weeks. See http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/u-boot (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/u-boot) for more information. See below for the initial features.

Source code and pre-built binary/srec files for Nios-II Cyclone Development kit are now available at:

http://www.psyent.com/download (http://www.psyent.com/download)

Regards,

--Scott

=====================================================================

Nios-II U-Boot Features

=====================================================================

-Serial or JTAG console

-Flash memory programming support

-Networking support

-DHCP

-BOOTP/TFTP

-NFS client

-ping

-File download support

-TFTP

-NFS

-Kermit (serial port)

-S-Record (serial port)

-Environment/Scripting support

- ... and more

Altera_Forum · ‎08-29-2004

Hi Scott.

Do you know by chance, if the U-Boot can support TFTP on "standard32" hardware image,

for the Nios32 cyclone development kit?

Altera_Forum · ‎08-30-2004

The "do_bootm_linux" is not completed. Is that not the one that should be used for starting the system???

Altera_Forum · ‎08-30-2004

> The "do_bootm_linux" is not completed.

Correct. It is not implemented yet.

>Is that not the one that should be used for starting the system???

For starting the operating system, yes. Depending on your linux

init code, you may be able to start linux with the "go" command

until do_bootm_linux() is implemented -- or you could implement

the routine yourself and submit a patch :-)

--Scott

Altera_Forum · ‎08-30-2004

Yes, TFTP is supported for Nios-32.

I have successfully used tftpboot, bootp, ping, etc. using

the "standard-32" configuration on the DK-1C20 (Altera)

development board.

Regards,

--Scott

Altera_Forum · ‎08-31-2004

Hello,

I would like to know if u-boot could work on a Stratix board?

Christian

Altera_Forum · ‎08-31-2004

> I would like to know if u-boot could work on a Stratix board?

Yes, for Nios-32 support you can use the DK1S10 configuration.

For Nios-II you _may_ be able to use the PK1C20 configuration without

any modifications -- give it a try. If the PK1C20 configuration doesn't

work, the easiest thing to do (until a stratix config is developed) is:

1. Get the source code.

2. Edit include/configs/PK1C20.h -- change macros as appropriate.

3. Build u-boot:

$ make distclean

$ make PK1C20_config

$ make

Then use u-boot.srec, u-boot (elf) or u-boot.bin (binary) as you

see fit. BTW: the binary can be stored at an arbitrary address

(e.g. flash) as it will relocate itself into SDRAM.

Regards,

--Scott

Altera_Forum · ‎09-17-2004

The bootm command is now implemented. This lets you

boot or run kernels, scripts, etc. It fully supports

gzip and bz2 decompression (for compressed kernels).

In order to use bootm you will need to use the u-boot

'mkimage' utility. mkimage is used to create the u-boot image

files. mkimage and updated binary/source archives are

available at:

http://www.psyent.com/download (http://www.psyent.com/download)

I tested by booting a gzipped Microtronix linux kernel

on the Altera 1C20 devkit board. Result were pretty

good:

vmlinux.bin: 1.6 MB (original binary)

vmlinux.img: 678 KB (gzipped u-boot image).

BTW: see the README in the mkimage zip file

for instructions.

Regards,

--Scott

Altera_Forum · ‎09-20-2004

I tried this on Altera Stratix 1s40, it works with flying colors. Thanks Scott.