Installing Precise (12.04) using netboot onto an Armada XP Development Board

Download http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/installer-armhf/current/images/armadaxp/uImage and http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/precise/main/installer-armhf/current/images/armadaxp/uInitrd and place them on an available TFTP server.

Access the Armada XP serial console, for example with screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200 on a management machine with a USB serial adaptor attached to it.

Power on the board.

Interrupt U-Boot by pressing Enter when prompted.

Type the following at the U-Boot prompt, replacing the IP address with the IP address of your TFTP server:

dhcp
tftpboot 0x2000000 192.168.1.1:/uImage
tftpboot 0x1100000 192.168.1.1:/uInitrd
setenv bootargs "console=ttyS0,155200 root=/dev/sda1 rw"
bootm 0x2000000 0x1100000

This will boot into the installer. Follow the default partitioning scheme suggested. When the installer finishes and reboots, interrupt U-Boot again and type the following. If you used a different partitioning scheme, adjust the ext2load and root parameters accordingly.

setenv bootcmd "ide reset;ext2load ide 0:1 0x2000000 uImage;ext2load ide 0:1 0x1100000 uInitrd;setenv bootargs console=ttyS0,115200 pm_disable earlyprintk=ttyS0 root=/dev/sda2 ro;bootm 0x2000000 0x1100000"
save
reset

Your system should now boot into the installed system, with U-Boot configured and verified to continue doing so on future reboots.

Installing pre-installed OMAP3/4 Precise (12.04) Server Images

Follow these steps;

Download

Download the compressed image from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/12.04/release/

Check the md5sum to verify the image

Copy the image to SD card

You should write the raw image to a blank SD card. Make sure you're using at least a 2 Gig SD card so that you have enough room for the image.

Steps:

1. Insert the SD card in your host computer's SD card reader.
2. Make sure the SD card is not mounted (just umount it if needed).

3. Identify the correct device name (like /dev/mmcblk0 or /dev/sdb).

4. Run the following command to write it:

gunzip -c ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-server-armhf+<omap or omap4>.img.gz | sudo dd bs=1M of=/dev/<device name>
sync

or

sudo sh -c 'zcat ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-server-armhf+<omap or omap4>.img.gz > /dev/<device name>'
sync

(note: replace <omap image> with either omap for beagle/beagleXM/other omap3 based system or omap4 for panda/blaze/other omap4 based system and the raw block device for <device name> - not a partition. i.e. /dev/mmcblk0 )

Booting the image

On Pandaboard and BeagleXM

1. Attach a serial cable to the serial port on the board. (note: The board is already wired for a straight serial cable - no null modem needed)

2. Open a terminal on your host system and launch a serial console monitor with the port set for 115200,n,8,1

   • Screen: screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

     • * you can end the screen session by pressing Ctrl-A and then K

   • Minicom: TERM=vt100 minicom

     • * the TERM=vt100 setting is needed for proper output formatting

       * you can end the minicom session by pressing Ctrl-A and then X or Q

3. Insert the SD card in the system and switch on the board.

The system should start booting with output shown on your serial terminal. After the board resizes the image to fill the SD card, it will reboot and start oem-config to prompt for localization and user info.

On older Beagleboards that boot from nand

Insert SD card with new image into the beagleboard and reset while holding User1 button on system

On omap3 systems with a modified NAND (i.e. beaglebord C series) do the following:

On a serial console connected to the system, halt any autoboot script and type

setenv bootcmd 'mmc init;fatload mmc 0 0x82000000 boot.scr;source 0x82000000'; setenv autostart yes; saveenv; boot

On revision B7 Beagleboards and older(?) the syntax is slightly different. So if you are getting messages saying 'mmcinit usage' and 'source command not found' errors try:

setenv bootcmd 'mmcinit;fatload mmc 0 0x82000000 boot.scr;autoscr 0x82000000'; setenv autostart yes; saveenv; boot

The system should start booting (note that this step is only necessary if you have a NAND and the system does not default to reading boot.scr from SD)