Adding new processors and boards to buildroot

[Tim Barr-2]

How does something like this actually get done in buildroot? We have a design based on the Atmel AT91SAM9G20 part, and the guy working with me on software had to make a lot of modifications to the Timesys build in order to support a different Ethernet MAC chip using the MII interface, use the 32Mbit DataFlash, Use a 16 bit NAND Flash, boot from the NAND Flash, and make some other I/O pin assignment different from the the EK board. We are also using uboot 1.3.3 and had to modify it to work with MII and a 16 bit NAND Flash. He is creating diff files so that other people can setup the same compile code, how do you do something like this in buildroot? I assume it has something to do with the config files in the target directory.

 

And how do you set up buildroot to create a JFFS2 root filesystem for the NAND Flash? Is it considered a parallel flash?? There is only an option for DataFlash or parallel flash when I run menuconfig.

 

Timothy Barr
Hardware Development Engineer
for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
tbarr@...

 

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[Ulf Samuelsson-4]

Some parts of this message have been removed. Learn more about Nabble's security policy.

 

From: tbarr@...

To: buildroot@...

Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 5:13 PM

Subject: [Buildroot] Adding new processors and boards to buildroot

How does something like this actually get done in buildroot?

 

The board definitions basically define the configuration (.config) for

 

1) Buildroot root fs

2) Linux configuration

3) Busybox configuration

4) uCLibc configuration

 

The easiest way to support the AT91SAM9G20 is to start with the

AT91SAM9260DFC support and do

 

You may have to edit the buildroot linux configuration to add any patches

you have developed for the AT91SAM9G20.

 

$ make at91sam9260dfc_defconfig

$ make configured

 

This will create the linux, uClibc, busybox directories.

You then change the configurations to suit the SAM9G20

 

Once ready you can do

 

make saveconfig

 

which will create a BSP in the "local" directory.

You can have the "local" directory outside the buuildroot tree

by setting an environment variable (IIRC "BUILDROOT_LOCAL")

 

 

We have a design based on the Atmel AT91SAM9G20 part,

and the guy working with me on software had to make a lot of modifications to the Timesys

build in order to support a different Ethernet MAC chip using the MII interface,

use the 32Mbit DataFlash, Use a 16 bit NAND Flash, boot from the NAND Flash,

and make some other I/O pin assignment different from the the EK board.

We are also using uboot 1.3.3 and had to modify it to work with MII and a 16 bit NAND Flash.

He is creating diff files so that other people can setup the same compile code,

how do you do something like this in buildroot?

 

diff -urN <old> <new> > <diff>.patch

Then submit the patch to the mailing list.

 

U-Boot 1.3.3 is not supported in buildroot.

There was some issue with mkimage.

 

I am definitely interested in having SAM9G20 support in buildroot

but I do not have a target board yet.

 

 

I assume it has something to do with the config files in the target directory.

 

And how do you set up buildroot to create a JFFS2 root filesystem for the NAND Flash?

Is it considered a parallel flash??

 

If you can figure out the correct parameters for generating the JFFS2 system

you can modify the target/jffs2/jffs2.mk and Config.in and propose a patch.

IIRC you can supply parameters as freetext to JFFS2 

 

 

There is only an option for DataFlash or parallel flash when I run menuconfig.

 

Timothy Barr
Hardware Development Engineer
for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
tbarr@...

 

---

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Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson

 

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[Tim Barr-2]

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We are able to compile u-boot 1.3.3 using make 3.80, is there any way buildroot can redirect make files to a different version of make? Right now we have code working on our 9G20 design with a Micrel phy in MII mode(which we could not get to work with u-boot 1.2), either 16 bit or 8 bit NAND, and booting from NAND or DF. We also have linux running on a modified 9260EK board we got from Atmel that has a 9G20 on it, using u-boot 1.3.3.

Timothy Barr
Hardware Development Engineer
for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
tbarr@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Ulf Samuelsson [mailto:ulf.samuelsson@...]
Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 11:39 PM
To: Tim Barr; buildroot@...
Subject: Re: [Buildroot] Adding new processors and boards to buildroot

 

From: tbarr@...

To: buildroot@...

Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2008 5:13 PM

Subject: [Buildroot] Adding new processors and boards to buildroot

How does something like this actually get done in buildroot?

 

The board definitions basically define the configuration (.config) for

 

1) Buildroot root fs

2) Linux configuration

3) Busybox configuration

4) uCLibc configuration

 

The easiest way to support the AT91SAM9G20 is to start with the

AT91SAM9260DFC support and do

 

You may have to edit the buildroot linux configuration to add any patches

you have developed for the AT91SAM9G20.

 

$ make at91sam9260dfc_defconfig

$ make configured

 

This will create the linux, uClibc, busybox directories.

You then change the configurations to suit the SAM9G20

 

Once ready you can do

 

make saveconfig

 

which will create a BSP in the "local" directory.

You can have the "local" directory outside the buuildroot tree

by setting an environment variable (IIRC "BUILDROOT_LOCAL")

 

 

We have a design based on the Atmel AT91SAM9G20 part,

and the guy working with me on software had to make a lot of modifications to the Timesys

build in order to support a different Ethernet MAC chip using the MII interface,

use the 32Mbit DataFlash, Use a 16 bit NAND Flash, boot from the NAND Flash,

and make some other I/O pin assignment different from the the EK board.

We are also using uboot 1.3.3 and had to modify it to work with MII and a 16 bit NAND Flash.

He is creating diff files so that other people can setup the same compile code,

how do you do something like this in buildroot?

 

diff -urN <old> <new> > <diff>.patch

Then submit the patch to the mailing list.

 

U-Boot 1.3.3 is not supported in buildroot.

There was some issue with mkimage.

 

I am definitely interested in having SAM9G20 support in buildroot

but I do not have a target board yet.

 

 

I assume it has something to do with the config files in the target directory.

 

And how do you set up buildroot to create a JFFS2 root filesystem for the NAND Flash?

Is it considered a parallel flash??

 

If you can figure out the correct parameters for generating the JFFS2 system

you can modify the target/jffs2/jffs2.mk and Config.in and propose a patch.

IIRC you can supply parameters as freetext to JFFS2 

 

 

There is only an option for DataFlash or parallel flash when I run menuconfig.

 

Timothy Barr
Hardware Development Engineer
for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
tbarr@...

 

---

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Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson

 

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[Bernhard Reutner-Fischer]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 11:04:36AM -0500, Tim Barr wrote:
>We are able to compile u-boot 1.3.3 using make 3.80, is there any way

[FILE] make-3.80.tar.bz2. . . . . . . . Oct 04  2002    900K [DOWNLOAD]
[FILE] make-3.81.tar.bz2. . . . . . . . Apr 01  2006   1125K [DOWNLOAD]

Why do you think you cannot use make 3.81?
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[Tim Barr-2]

For some reason make 3.81 causes errors trying to compile uboot 1.3.3
which is why they have not moved uboot from 1.2 to 1.3 in buildroot, as
I understand it. We saw the same problem, but using make 3.80 instead of
make 3.81, we were bale to compile uboot 1.3.3 without errors.

Timothy Barr
Hardware Development Engineer
for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
tbarr@...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernhard Reutner-Fischer [mailto:rep.dot.nop@...]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 11:18 AM
> To: Tim Barr
> Cc: buildroot@...
> Subject: Re: [Buildroot] Adding new processors and boards to buildroot
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 11:04:36AM -0500, Tim Barr wrote:
> >We are able to compile u-boot 1.3.3 using make 3.80, is there any way
>
> [FILE] make-3.80.tar.bz2. . . . . . . . Oct 04  2002    900K
> [DOWNLOAD]
> [FILE] make-3.81.tar.bz2. . . . . . . . Apr 01  2006   1125K
> [DOWNLOAD]
>
> Why do you think you cannot use make 3.81?
>

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[jacmet]

>>>>> "Tim" == Tim Barr <tbarr@...> writes:

Hi,

 Tim> For some reason make 3.81 causes errors trying to compile uboot
 Tim> 1.3.3 which is why they have not moved uboot from 1.2 to 1.3 in
 Tim> buildroot, as I understand it. We saw the same problem, but
 Tim> using make 3.80 instead of make 3.81, we were bale to compile
 Tim> uboot 1.3.3 without errors.

Strange. On what architecture? Does it give the same error if you
compile U-boot by hand? Have you reported it to the U-boot list?

What buildroot are you talking about? Buildroot from uclibc.org (what
this list is about) builds U-Boot 1.3.4 (the latest release).

--
Bye, Peter Korsgaard
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[Ulf Samuelsson-4]

> For some reason make 3.81 causes errors trying to compile uboot 1.3.3
> which is why they have not moved uboot from 1.2 to 1.3 in buildroot, as
> I understand it. We saw the same problem, but using make 3.80 instead of
> make 3.81, we were bale to compile uboot 1.3.3 without errors.
>
> Timothy Barr
> Hardware Development Engineer
> for Multi-Tech Systems, Inc.
> tbarr@...

No the reason for not moving on from 1.2.0 for the AT91 is that
it is very difficult to get patches accepted upstream.

As an example, The AT91RM9200EK is not supported in mainstream.
It is fairly similar to the AT91RM9200DK, but submitting
a board support package for the board is a real pain.

One would think that taking the existing DK board code and
modify the few lines needed to have proper support for the EK
would be OK.

No, the working parallel flash driver is not acceptable, instead the
CFI driver should be used, even though this does not support
properly the flash on that board, and the complete dataflash
support needs to be rewritten because someone did not like
that you can use dataflash with the same ease as a parallel flash.

The U-Boot-1.2.0 for the AT91 takes the Atmel patches
needed to support all AT91 boards, and adds a few nifty features of my own.

When I have more time, I will update the patches to the latest status
and hopefully merger with the vanilla u-boot which also exists in u-boot.


Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson                ulf@...
Atmel Nordic AB
Mail:  Box 2033, 174 02 Sundbyberg, Sweden
Visit:  Kavallerivägen 24, 174 58 Sundbyberg, Sweden
Phone [phone]     Fax [phone]
GSM    [phone]


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