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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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19 years ago

elf2flash and bootloader questions

I'm trying (so far in vain) to get RedBoot to run from flash. The ROMRAM startup version of RedBoot works fine when loaded into RAM via JTAG, but the ROM startup version of RedBoot doesn't r...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
19 years ago

Hi grante,

> I can find no detailed documentation on either elf2flash or the mysterious external bootloader

> which appears to be available only as an srec file.

You need to read the "Nios II Software Developer’s Handbook."

> * What exactly does "elf2flash" do?

See the handbook for details ... but basically what it says: it converts the elf to a flash file.

Very simply: it creates a record for each loadable section, throws in the bootloader if necessary,

and outputs the srec for the flash programmer.

> * Why can't "objcopy" be used like all other normal eCos targets?

It can -- just run it from the command line.

> * What is the external bootloader .srec file for?

Read chapter 4 in the handbook ... the section "Memory Usage."

> * Why would a ROM-resident bootloader like RedBoot require a second bootloader?

It doesn't -- you can use objcopy and bin2flash (if you want to use the flash programmer).

Regards,

--Scott