ARM/MarvellDoveMaverickInstall

MarvellDoveMaverickInstall

This page covers installation of Ubuntu "Maverick" 10.04 on Marvell Dove A0/X0 boards.

Known issues

Please consult the known issues with Ubuntu 10.04 ARM platforms before installing.

Preparation and image writing

Prep Work

u-boot requires a TFTP server to download files from. Several are available in universe, including attpd and tftpd-hpa. Install the server on a machine the Dove can access and take note of its IP address.

Update the BootROM

All Marvell boards have a BootROM written both in physical ROM, and a small section of SPI that can be used for upgrades. Newest versions of Marvell's kernel requires a newer BootROM, with the newest being 2.04. All X0 boards should ship with BootROM 2.04; if not, you need to upgrade the bootROM to at least 2.04:

BootROM 2.04: http://people.canonical.com/~mcasadevall/dove/dove_bootrom_2_04_spi_0x1.img

Take that file, and place it in the TFTP folder. In addition, please make sure your board is setup for SPI booting (detailed below). At the u-boot prompt, type the following commands:

Marvell>> setenv serverip *ip address of TFTP server*
Marvell>> setenv ipaddr *board IP address*
Marvell>> tftp 2000000 dove_bootrom_2_04_spi_0x1.img
Marvell>> protect off f87f0000 f8800000
Marvell>> erase f87f0000 f8800000
Marvell>> cp.b 2000000 f87f0000 10000
Marvell>> protect on f87f0000 f8800000
Marvell>> reset

If successful, the board will boot back into u-boot. Depending on the version of u-boot in SPI, it may or may not print a message about the new BootROM in SPI. These messages look like the following:

BootROM version (on chip)= 1.07
BootROM version (upgrade on SPI)= 2.04
BootROM Status:
Number of retries = 0

Update u-boot

The stock u-boot on the Marvell Dove X0 and A0 board is sufficient to boot Ubuntu, and this step is optional. However, bugs related to suspend and resume were fixed with u-boot 4.4.2, and it is highly recommended that you upgrade.

Canonical versions have a version string similar this

U-Boot 1.3.4 (Oct 15 2009 - 12:11:45) Marvell version: 4.3.0 NQ - SPI BOOT. Canonical Development Version.

The current recommend version of u-boot for dove is Marvell-4.4.2

If your u-boot is older, you'll have to update it to a newer version. u-boot binaries for X0 are located here: http://people.canonical.com/~mcasadevall/dove/. The date of the binary is at the end of each filename in MMDDYYYY format. Official binaries from Marvell end in Marvell-VERSION. The filename also includes where the u-boot is supposed to be installed to, and the amount of RAM the board should have; MAKE SURE THESE VALUES ARE CORRECT; flashing a bootloader which doesn't match the hardware revision or amount of RAM may prevent the board from powering up and requiring UART recovery.

$Warning /!\$ DANGER - If you are at all unsure, please confirm what you are doing is correct with NCommander; a bad u-boot flash WILL brick your board without a JTAG adapter

Lastest X0 Image for 1GiB boards: http://people.canonical.com/~mcasadevall/dove/x0/uboot-SPI-X0-1G_Marvell-4.4.2.bin<<BR>>
Make sure that the serverip and ipaddr variables are properly set in u-boot (use printenv *name* to check, setenv *name* *value* to change, and save to commit). If you can currently TFTP images to your board, these values are correct.

The bubt command is used for upgrading u-boot on the same medium (i.e., flashing a new u-boot to SPI while booted from SPI). It can't be used to go from one boot medium to another (i.e., SPI to NAND).

Marvell>> setenv serverip ''TFTP Server''
Marvell>> setenv ipaddr ''board IP address''
Marvell>> bubt ''filename of uboot''

Answer yes when asked if you wipe the environmental variables. Type reset when done to boot into the new u-boot

Writing the Image

First of all you need to download the Image to a large enough USB stick (1GB will suffice) that u-boot will be able to use; SanDisk were reported as supported.

For writing the image either use the usb-imagewriter tool which you can install from the Jaunty universe archive (packages for Hardy (8.04) and Intrepid (8.10) can be found at the usb-imagewriter PPA) or follow the commandline method below.

sudo dd bs=4M if=./lucid-desktop-armel+dove.img of=/dev/sdb

(assuming your USB stick is called /dev/sdb)

You'll also need a SATA disk or large USB harddrive as the target installation device.

$Warning /!\$ USB booting is supported, but the Dove bootloader is extremely picky on what devices it will boot from. Using SATA is recommended and perferred

Starting the live system manually

$Warning /!\$ These instructions are currently for reference if you need to manually start from the boot prompt. Current u-boot versions will autostart from a properly written USB stick

Attach the USB pendrive you made in the previous step to the Dove, and then reset the board with the drive attached.

IMPORTANT - Don't type usb start more than once in any given u-boot session since it will cause u-boot to loose track of all devices it currently sees.

You can test if the drive was detected like this:

Marvell>> usb start
(Re)start USB...
USB:   scanning bus for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Marvell>> fatls usb 0:1
            casper/
            dists/
            pics/
            .disk/
            install/
            preseed/
            pool/
     3143   md5sum.txt
      368   boot.scr
      228   readme.diskdefines

3 file(s), 7 dir(s)

If you get file output, your in business. The live image can be started with the following if you have the hush shell available.

Marvell>> usb start
(Re)start USB...
USB:   scanning bus for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Marvell>> fatload usb 0:1 0x1000 boot.scr
reading boot.scr

368 bytes read
Marvell>> autoscr 1000
## Executing script at 00001000
Loading Ubuntu LiveCD...
reading /casper/uImage
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Wrong Ramdisk Image Format

Starting kernel ...

Uncompressing Linux............................................................
.............................................................................................................. done, booting the kernel.
Linux version 2.6.31-201-dove (buildd@jaboticaba) (gcc version 4.4.1 (Ubuntu 4.4.1-3ubuntu1) ) #5-Ubuntu Mon Aug 24 23:06:43 UTC 2009 (Ubuntu 2.6.31-201.5-dove)

If your using a non-hush enabled u-boot, you will have to load the uImage and uInitrd by hand to start the live environment

Marvell>> usb start
(Re)start USB...
USB:   scanning bus for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
       scanning bus for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Marvell>> fatload usb 0:1 0x20000 /casper/uImage
Marvell>> fatload usb 0:1 0x110000 /casper/uInitrd
Marvell>> setenv bootcmd mem=512M file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed -- boot=casper
Marvell>> bootm 0x20000 0x110000

ARM/MarvellDoveMaverickInstall (last edited 2010-10-08 14:43:15 by 076-076-148-180)

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