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Altera_Forum
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20 years ago

uClinux boot from epcs ?

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.niosforu...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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20 years ago

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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?

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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&#39;t need it since I just use one kernel which I stored in EPCS. But the Altera bootcopier gives you zero flexibility.