Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorI, too, have gone through this same thrash.
After installing the latest Microtronix release, I found that I couldn't import a previously working kernel project. It won't build. Even after re-generating the core in SOPC builder, compiling the FPGA design in Q2 4.2, then reconfiguring the kernel, the kernel build fails. LOTS of errors. Taking JIMBOBBUS's advice, I started a new kernel project with a new name. I finally got a kernel to build after much effort. I was able to upload the kernel, and a new ROMfs to my custom hardware, so at least the upload function isn't broken in the new release. But, linux failed to boot on the hardware. The board is doing a lot of nothing, when it was booting the OS just fine under the previous release. So now the question is: what new kernel features need to be turned on/off to make the OS work again? It is an excruciatingly painful process to go in and try all the new kernel features one-by-one turning them on/off to see if I've hit the secret, magic combination of things that will allow the OS to actually run on the hardware. This is not a smooth, seamless upgrade. Anyone trying to use this new release should be prepared for absolutely nothing to work. Just getting the OS to boot on the hardware was horrifically painful the first time around. Having to go through that process again, for no apparent reason, makes me seriously unhappy too. These tools are apparently rigged to work only with a few development boards. If you make any deviation from the canned demos you might as well start pulling your own teeth out, without the novocaine. While it is nice that the demos can be made to run on demo boards, that his little or no value when trying to build and run a kernel on your own product HW. That process could be made vastly simpler if Microtronix published a quide indicating what the peripheral names have to be, what their IRQs have to be, what kernel features need to be turned on/off for each peripheral, etc. Pick the wrong name for your FLASH memory and the kernel won't build. Pick the wrong IRQ for your ethernet port and the OS won't find the chip. How about it Microtronix?
