tango

[Joel Newkirk]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:56:19 -0400, "Seth Rothenberg" <seth at pachai.net>
wrote:

> so, how to upgrade if usb networking is unstable?
> Now, a few days later, it won't stay up long enough to...
> run neotool.   From the time I bring up networking,
> until I click over to another window, it now fails.
> (I am on Ubuntu, 8.04)

Does your network dropping happen with the FR running, or at boot menu?  If
while running, how are you starting it on the Hardy box? If manually, what
command, and if via changed /etc/network/interfaces, can you paste your
usb0 section?  

You don't use neotool (or dfu-util) to flash the Freerunner with USB
networking.  The Freerunner has to be at the NAND or NOR boot menu - it'll
only stay there for 30 seconds unless you periodically press AUX, btw,
until it's started flashing, so do this after selecting files to flash and
just before clicking 'start' to begin flashing.  If you're trying to bring
up usb0 on the host machine at this point, there's nothing for it to talk
to.


So to flash, download a new image (like
http://downloads.openmoko.org/releases/Om2008.8-update/ - you need 'gta02'
versions of rootfs and uImage and rootfs may be .jffs2 or .jffs2.summary)
and fire up Neotool.  Tell it to flash, select the files, and it will tell
you to prepare the Freerunner.  At this point the FR should be off, and
plugged into USB.  Hold down 'aux', press and hold power now until the NOR
boot menu appears, then release both.  Click 'start' (or whatever the
button is) in neotool and it will start flashing.  rootfs will take quite
some time.

Once you've confirmed it finished correctly and boots the FR, consider also
flashing the latest uboot bootloader - same procedure.
 
> Do I need to just get an SD card reader to copy the new image on? -
> will that help me?   (will I need a bigger SD card? :-).

no

> I don't suppose the FR will allow me to use the SD from the host
> without bringing up USB networking?

no

> related - I saw a page about  buying or building a USB crossover cable,
> so the FR could be a host.  Could I then upgrade from a USB stick?

AFAIK the FreeRunner currently has no way to flash itself from an image,
regardless of where it's located.  At best you'd only be able to flash
bootsplash and uboot bootloader while the OS is running from the internal
flash you'd be overwriting.  Such a flash feature would need to be in the
bootloader itself and (currently at least) is not. (uboot)  Dfu-util is it,
and neotool as GUI and extension for it.

j