uClinux boot from epcs ?

Question

If someone like me wants to run uCLinux on a Nios2 but the fpga must not be a bga type then the biggest fpga available is EP2C20 with QFP 240 pins. That one can be handsoldered http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif (Done that several times before)

To have a lot of memory a would like to include sdram and of course a compact flash. as i would like to get rid of the cfi as the fpga will boot from epcs i asked myself if it could be possible to have only fpga + sdram + a big epcs + cf. after an AS configuration from the epcs nios could boot from epcs.

now my question has anybody done this ? booting uCLinux from epcs. but not the whole uclinux. i think of a smal bootloader like lilo (grub under debian) that loads the rest from a compact flash card that can't be big enough :-)

Regards Michael

altera_forum · Answer

Hi Michael,  &gt;  booting uCLinux from epcs. but not the whole uclinux. i think of a smal bootloader &gt; like lilo (grub under debian) that loads the rest from a compact flash card that &gt; can&amp;#39;t be big enough  You can use u-boot in such a design ... as it supports CF as well as epcs. If your epcs is large enough, you could fit the entire kernel ... u-boot can load, decompress, and boot a gzip/bzip kernel image (same goes for CF of course).  Currently, I load u-boot from epcs and then boot a gzipped kernel image (~520 KB) either from parallel flash, a tftp server, or an NFS server. Same goes for the cramfs filesystem (which gets stuffed into SDRAM as well).  Regards, --Scott

altera_forum · Answer

--- Quote Start ---  originally posted by smcnutt@Feb 22 2006, 04:43 PM hi michael,  &gt;  booting uclinux from epcs. but not the whole uclinux. i think of a smal bootloader &gt; like lilo (grub under debian) that loads the rest from a compact flash card that &gt; can&amp;#39;t be big enough  you can use u-boot in such a design ... as it supports cf as well as epcs. if your epcs is large enough, you could fit the entire kernel ... u-boot can load, decompress, and boot a gzip/bzip kernel image (same goes for cf of course).  currently, i load u-boot from epcs and then boot a gzipped kernel image (~520 kb) either from parallel flash, a tftp server, or an nfs server. same goes for the cramfs filesystem (which gets stuffed into sdram as well).  regards, --scott &lt;div align='right'&gt;&lt;{post_snapback}&gt; (index.php?act=findpost&amp;pid=12890)  --- quote end ---    --- Quote End ---

altera_forum · Answer

Related to this, what are the advantages of using U-boot? I mean, Altera seems to have included a nice little boot copier that copies code from either CFI or EPCS to RAM and then boots, along with their flash programming utility. So to boot a kernel from EPCS, it should be as simple as downloading it to the config device and pointing to the altera boot copier.

Are there any advantages of U boot?

altera_forum · Answer

--- Quote Start ---  originally posted by jdhar@Feb 28 2006, 01:46 AM related to this, what are the advantages of using u-boot? i mean, altera seems to have included a nice little boot copier that copies code from either cfi or epcs to ram and then boots, along with their flash programming utility. so to boot a kernel from epcs, it should be as simple as downloading it to the config device and pointing to the altera boot copier.  are there any advantages of u boot? &lt;div align='right'&gt;&lt;{post_snapback}&gt; (index.php?act=findpost&amp;pid=12981)  --- quote end ---    --- Quote End ---    I boot from EPCS with the Altera boot copier and it works perfectly (Only with Quartus 5.1 and NiosII 5.1, the 5.0 versions had a bug which made it VERY slow). But if you want more control, load the kernel over the network, change parameters, choose a different kernel each time you boot etc. you need u-boot.  I personally don&amp;#39;t need it since I just use one kernel which I stored in EPCS. But the Altera bootcopier gives you zero flexibility.

altera_forum · Answer

I gotcha, makes sense. Do you know why Alteras flash programmer doesn&amp;#39;t verify the contents of the EPCS when it programs? It just says "Did not attempt to verify device contents, leaving target processor paused"... when programming the EPCS.

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uClinux boot from epcs ?

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