[FSO] milestone V on GTA01 - U-Boot updates

[Gerald A]

Hi Peter,
I can't answer all of your questions, but some I can:

On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 3:42 PM, Peter Rasmussen <plr at udgaard.com> wrote:

> Too bad, but it raises some questions:
>
> 4.I have never understood why it should be possible to brick the Neo1973
> for any reason, because if you have prepared at least one 'safe' entry point
> you should always be able to at least get to that. Or what is the problem?


It is possible a bad "uboot" flash can cause the device to be rendered
unbootable. This is because the uboot is changeable, and there is no
recovery method (other then the debug board) available. The Freerunner has
both a NAND and a NOR flash, which allows one to be upgraded while one will
always work.

Development doesn't require a debug board, but only a C compiler (or
something that emits the instructions that the Neo runs). Kernels, flashing
filesystems and system software doesn't have the same problem, since you can
simply re-flash them.

But I believe that the uBoot is what permits this reflashing, and if you
flash a bad uBoot then the debug board is your only means of unbricking. So,
for safety reasons, one would prefer not to flash a uBoot without a debug
board handy, so you can go back to a known good version.

Gerald.
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