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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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21 years ago

Nios-II boot monitor available (u-boot)

U-Boot is a boot monitor that supports a variety of processors including: Nios-II, Nios-32, PowerPC, ARM, MIPS, and x86. It is licensed under the terms of the GPL.

A patch has (just) been submitted to the u-boot project that includes support for Nios-II processors. Hopefully, the patch will be added to the main source tree within the next few weeks. See http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/u-boot (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/u-boot) for more information. See below for the initial features.

Source code and pre-built binary/srec files for Nios-II Cyclone Development kit are now available at:

http://www.psyent.com/download (http://www.psyent.com/download)

Regards,

--Scott

=====================================================================

Nios-II U-Boot Features

=====================================================================

-Serial or JTAG console

-Flash memory programming support

-Networking support

-DHCP

-BOOTP/TFTP

-NFS client

-ping

-File download support

-TFTP

-NFS

-Kermit (serial port)

-S-Record (serial port)

-Environment/Scripting support

- ... and more

8 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    Hi Scott.

    Do you know by chance, if the U-Boot can support TFTP on "standard32" hardware image,

    for the Nios32 cyclone development kit?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    The "do_bootm_linux" is not completed. Is that not the one that should be used for starting the system???

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    > The "do_bootm_linux" is not completed.

    Correct. It is not implemented yet.

    >Is that not the one that should be used for starting the system???

    For starting the operating system, yes. Depending on your linux

    init code, you may be able to start linux with the "go" command

    until do_bootm_linux() is implemented -- or you could implement

    the routine yourself and submit a patch :-)

    --Scott
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    Yes, TFTP is supported for Nios-32.

    I have successfully used tftpboot, bootp, ping, etc. using

    the "standard-32" configuration on the DK-1C20 (Altera)

    development board.

    Regards,

    --Scott
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    Hello,

    I would like to know if u-boot could work on a Stratix board?

    Christian
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    > I would like to know if u-boot could work on a Stratix board?

    Yes, for Nios-32 support you can use the DK1S10 configuration.

    For Nios-II you _may_ be able to use the PK1C20 configuration without

    any modifications -- give it a try. If the PK1C20 configuration doesn't

    work, the easiest thing to do (until a stratix config is developed) is:

    1. Get the source code.

    2. Edit include/configs/PK1C20.h -- change macros as appropriate.

    3. Build u-boot:

    $ make distclean

    $ make PK1C20_config

    $ make

    Then use u-boot.srec, u-boot (elf) or u-boot.bin (binary) as you

    see fit. BTW: the binary can be stored at an arbitrary address

    (e.g. flash) as it will relocate itself into SDRAM.

    Regards,

    --Scott
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    The bootm command is now implemented. This lets you

    boot or run kernels, scripts, etc. It fully supports

    gzip and bz2 decompression (for compressed kernels).

    In order to use bootm you will need to use the u-boot

    'mkimage' utility. mkimage is used to create the u-boot image

    files. mkimage and updated binary/source archives are

    available at:

    http://www.psyent.com/download (http://www.psyent.com/download)

    I tested by booting a gzipped Microtronix linux kernel

    on the Altera 1C20 devkit board. Result were pretty

    good:

    vmlinux.bin: 1.6 MB (original binary)

    vmlinux.img: 678 KB (gzipped u-boot image).

    BTW: see the README in the mkimage zip file

    for instructions.

    Regards,

    --Scott
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    21 years ago

    I tried this on Altera Stratix 1s40, it works with flying colors. Thanks Scott.