A few more First-Day issues

The Shonko Kid shonko_kid at yahoo.com
Fri Aug 17 08:39:10 CEST 2007


--- Peter Rasmussen <plr at udgaard.com> wrote:
> Then, when I will eventually be able to build a kernel, I am wondering:
> 
> is the only way to change to it, by loading it through the dfu-util, or 
> is it also possible by using a more "desktop like method", like building 
> a kernel, putting it in somewhere, eg. /boot, update /etc/lilo.conf, run 
> lilo and then reboot?
As someone already pointed out you can Boot from the SD card.

I doubt you'll get to the same process as you may be used to on a desktop Linux
system, because on an embedded system it isn't simply a process of adding a new
kernel image to the filesystem and pointing the bootloader at it. The
bootloader is configured to always boot the image that resides at a specific
location in the nand flash. Now, while you _could_ add more kernel images to
the nand flash, you would need to repartition the flash each time you added
one. And that isn't as simple as doing it on a disc based system either.

One thing that may be worth exploring is modding u-boot to support Flash from
SD card, I don't think it does this just yet, but most of the code needed to do
it will be there, then your reflash proceedure would be to upload the files to
the SD card, and reboot into the u-boot menu and choose the appropriate option.
I think this is the closest to the familiar procedure as you are likely to get.

> I am hoping to eventually be able to run everything natively on the 
> Neo1973, just like on a desktop. Hey, it runs 266MHz so it should have 
> plenty horsepower to build its own kernel :-)
Yes, the Neo does have the horsepower, but I would advise against trying this.
Compilation, especially large builds like Linux kernels, are very disc IO
intensive, and the one thing you should avoid on NAND flash based systems is
disc IO intensive operations. They are slow and you will eventually wear out
the NAND flash. Of course, you could try and configure it to use a RAM drive as
a cache and scratchpad for all the temporary files.



       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows. Yahoo! Answers - Check it out.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469



More information about the device-owners mailing list