Re: configtool error

Altera_Forum · ‎03-04-2005

I just finished going through a terrible thrash in getting uClinux to run on my custom board. Painful, but eventually got it working with plenty of help from that forum. Now I'm trying to see if eCos can run on the same hardware. It should, but already things are not working.

Note: I'm a HW guy and all this OS stuff is foreign to me. I'm as newbie as you can get with OS related things, so please go easy on me!

I have Q2 4.2 installed along with NIOS2 1.1. I installed the latest release of eCos for NIOS2 1.1. Step one is to open the nios2configtool. It tries to open, but I get this error and I don't have a clue how to resolve it:

-----------------

c:/DOCUME~1/ATHLON~1/LOCALS~1/Temp/nios2_auto.cdl, option CYGHWR_HAL_SYSCLK_DEV, property legal_values: error

End of expression reached when expecting an operand.

<end of data>{ ...}

--------------------

This is an automatically generated file, so how do I fix it?

In SOPC builder, I have to select my own target board, and the clock is set for 50 MHz. It seems like the config tool is looking for a specific board type, such as an Altera board, and it seems confused by me not choosing one.

Will this port of eCos work on any HW, or will it only work on Altera development kit boards?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

TjB

Altera_Forum · ‎03-07-2005

This port of eCos should work on any hardware, assuming a few basic things like is there a timer in the system?

Can I suggest that you try to get this to work on an Altera development board first, that way we eliminate machine configuration and once that works we can find out if there's a problem with your hardware.

Altera_Forum · ‎03-07-2005

Unfortunately I don't have an Altera board to work with, just our custom board. Is there a listing somewhere of all the required peripherals that are needed to allow an eCos kernel to build? BTW, this was an issue with the uClinux distro too -- nobody would publish the secret list of periperhals required to build that kernel, which made the entire process long and painful. I was hoping maybe eCos would be different.

Can you think of anything that might cause the configtool to hang in the way I showed? It was barfing on the system clock for some reason. It is set to 50 MHz in the SOPC builder -- is that the wrong value for the eCos distro? (though I can't see why the configtool would care what the clock freq. is)

I'll add a timer and see if that allows the configtool to deal with the system clock.

I appreciate your help -- thanks!

TomB

Altera_Forum · ‎03-07-2005

Yes, you're right. It'd be a useful addition to the documentation if we listed the minimal system requirements. However the list of required devices is pretty small.

Apart from the processor itself, sufficent memory and a boot device (e.g. flash), the only device that must be present is a timer. This needs to be capable of periodically interrupting the processor (i.e. the interrupt line needs to be connected), and the default period needs to be something sensible (e.g. 10 ms).

Of course, if you want console I/O you will need to add in a console device etc. etc.